I have been having a lot of trouble with programming the NXT rotation sensor with ROBOLAB 2.9. I can get the rotation sensor to work some of the time, but whenever I try to add the NXT motor sync option the robot goes forward forever. A few questions: Can the rotation sensor and the motor sync b...
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I am so excited about what we have been doing with the robot. About two weeks ago, we built a model robot and were able to solve most of the missions with it. Unfortunately, the robot was not stable enough nor built in such a way that would allow us to turn. We decided to keep experimenting with...
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For the research project this year, teams are supposed to choose a building in our community, learn how it uses energy, research and suggest improvements, and inform the community. The LEGO Mountaineers have chosen for our research the clubhouse, the local community building toward the center of the...
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The LEGO Mountaineers are back for one more season. We are currently competing in the 07-08 Power Puzzle competition. (I'll explain the challenge in another post) Kevin and Derek Simmons, who had joined us previously for the Spring Showdown event, have joined our team again for this season, and...
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The 07-08 Power Puzzle challenge was released on September 5th. The entire theme this year is using energy wisely. Because many teams had shored very high last year, FLL Headquarters decided to make it much more challenging. Instead of the standard nine missions,the teams gave been given fourtee...
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The 07-08 Power Puzzle challenge was released on September 5th. The entire theme this year is using energy wisely. Because many teams had scored very high last year, FLL Headquarters decided to make it much more challenging. Instead of the standard nine missions,the teams gave been given fourtee...
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Saturday our team, the LEGO Mountaineers, competed in the 2007 Spring Showdown at Newhall, Santa Clarita. As I have posted earlier there were three divisions in this particular competition. First we competed in the mission rounds. In earlier meetings we had determined the following order in whi...
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The LEGO Mountaineers are back with a new spring robotics event! After the FIRST LEGO League season ended, two teachers from the Newhall competition created their own LEGO robotics event to continue encouraging kids in robotics. Soon after the season ended, our team, the LEGO Mountaineers, applied...
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For the first few meetings our team worked on building various sumo robots to try out various ideas, strategies, and lessons we had learned. During the last two meetings, we focused on the mission part of the competition. Our team split up into two groups: group one worked on the barbell mission...
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Last night, after repeatedly having trouble with the line following part of the competition, we all went home frustrated and discouraged. The robot didn't seem to work properly and we were having trouble understanding why. Today, we worked hard with Kevin and Derek to make some progress. This m...
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Today, our coach pulled us aside and told us he had downloaded a video that we really needed to see. Amy and I watched with literally open mouths as the Flying Geeks accomplished mission after mission, ALL WITHOUT TOUCHING THE ROBOT!!! You must watch this amazing video of the Flying Geeks. (Ri...
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As the state competition draws nearer our team becomes busier. We have spent the past few days testing, practicing, rehearsing, and so forth. So, are we nervous? Not the LEGO Mountaineers! (Well, maybe a little) We have de-bugged our robot to the best of our ability and improved our strategy....
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Yesterday, Amy, Emily and I worked for a few hours to de-bug the Smell (Pizza Molecule) mission. We were experiencing turning problems at the competition, which was rather strange because our robot had performed perfectly at our practice table. When my sisters and I tried it on the table five ou...
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Using the knowledge that we gained from today's competition, our team came up with a list of five things that we needed to check before each round. We have decided to share that list with other teams so that they can also be prepared....
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Today, our team competed in our first competition of the season, in Newhall, California. We had a fantastic time competing, and I believe that Emily and Kelly enjoyed it. It was surprising how well run this competition was and how quickly we moved from event to event. One thing that surprised me...
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This year, the LEGO Mountaineers have the privilege of being sponsored by many generous people and companies, but they have helped us more than financially. We have been given tools, encouragement, and we have learned valuable lessons from our sponsors. Our team has used some of the GTD methods,...
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PHOTO IMAGEToday I finished programming the last two missions that we had left, the pizza molecules and the elevator. Because we had a lot of turning in these missions, and because we couldn't do our method of forward and backward turns to inch our way around, I had to find a new way. PHOTO IMA...
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Last night, our team met at Disneyland to do some on site filming for our research presentation. Part of the research presentation involves us setting the theme of having our nanotechnology presentation at Disneyland's Innoventions - a demonstration center for science and technology. This was a serious work mission. Unfortunately, we didn't make it until it was dark, but we were able to get some reasonably good video....
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Today, Amy and I have been working very hard on our competition robot. When we left on vacation, we could successfully complete the Nano tube Strength mission, the Buckyball mission, the Dirt Trap, the Unstick Nanotip mission, and the Individual Atom Manipulation. We had started on the Unstainable...
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PHOTO IMAGEIn less than six days the LEGO Mountaineers will be competing in our first competition! This last week we have been working frantically on our research presentation. We have completed the team board and are now working on our presentation board. It took a while but we finally chose...
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After reviewing our notes from the fifteen minute survey of each mission, our coach gave us a list of next actions that we needed to accomplish to work on our robot. One of the things that we had to do was to read over the several missions, talk about each one, choose the missions that we wanted to...
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PHOTO IMAGEWe have been able to successfully knock the pizza scent molecules onto the LEGO man's nose. We have not, however been able to transport the robot back to base. Test Name: Smell What we Learned: We learned that the molecules can successfully be transported and that a collapsable arm...
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PHOTO IMAGEWe have successfully been able to push the tray to the basket. Without pushing the molecules out of the bucket we will receive 39 points. We have learned that our robot can go impeccably strait until we begin to turn. The only thing we will need to add to the program is to push the dum...
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We have successfully gotten the robot lined up perfectly with the table. The only thing we have to do now is to lower our arm and knock over the white "atom". Turning doesn't seem to be a problem right now, although our turns are so minimal that we really can't base our observations on that. Test...
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PHOTO IMAGEWe are having major problems with the turns that are so vital to complete this mission. One of the weird things is that this has occurred with all of the five robots that we have built with the NXT. We are going to talk to our coach about the possibility of redesigning our robot. Test...
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PHOTO IMAGEWe've had several ideas we've been testing for the Molecular Motor. Unfortunately, we have had major problems turning, especially because this mission is so far away from base. We have figured out that one of our turning problems is that our board was warped and uneven. This has fixed i...
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PHOTO IMAGEAt this point in our testing, our friend and former team member Faith lent a helping hand. With her help, we successfully raised the elevator. Unfortunately our old friend the turning problem is back. Our next action is to find out why our robot is turning. Test Name: Elevator What we...
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PHOTO IMAGEWe were able to successfully get the buckeyball into the bone three of the times that we tried it. Right now our only problem is that the ball sometimes gets trapped in the arm and can't be released. We need to work on this a little more to fine tune it. Our Next Action would be to find...
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PHOTO IMAGEOur next test involved the stuck nanotip. After extensive amount of experimenting and documenting our tests, we concluded that our arm was not strong enough to lift the nanotip. This is probably because the arm is incredibly long to serve in the other missions. To complete this mission, w...
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PHOTO IMAGEThe first mission we tested was the Nanotube Strength. We were able to attach a test bumper and we have been able to successfully move the truck onto the platform. Our timer rang before we were able to complete the mission, but we did get a good idea on ways to successfully knock the bu...
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Our coach gave us fifteen minutes to figure out how to solve each mission...let me explain. Our coach wanted us to get a little experience on solving each mission so that we could be well equipped on which missions to focus our attention on solving for the competition. This means that we would go as...
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PHOTO IMAGEYesterday, after many days of experimentation, we finally narrowed down the features that we want for our robot. Our coach helped us build a prototype for an idea, and we’ve been testing it. Considering the four robots that we have built with the NXT kits, we have a pretty clear picture of what we want our robot to do; now all we have to do is build and program. Our list is split into two parts, necessary and optional. The items on the necessary list are things we have proven to work the best or that we need. The items on optional are things we believe would make our robot work better, but we haven’t proven or tested it yet. Here is the list that we have come up with:...
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Today, Amy and I presented our biology professor a few of the ideas we had formulated for our research project and asked for his input. Originally we had thought about cancer research and that had been one of our main focuses. Unfortunately that is one of the most prominently suggested ideas in so...
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We have been trying various methods of solving the missions. We have completed the Nanotube Strength,(which is a mission where we push a truck onto a platform and raise it) Separate Nanotip mission, (where our robot has to separate two magnets) and the Individual Atom Manipulation, (in which our ro...
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PHOTO IMAGEToday Amy and I worked for six hours straight on the LEGO robot, going through the remaining tutorials, building our new robot, and troubleshooting various problems. We have found it very difficult to attach motors and wheels to our robot, while making it stronger. Our robot turned out...
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We've been off-line for a while. For the past three weeks a big fire has been burning in southern California. Every time we drove to the city we could either see the flames or the destruction that it had caused. Suddenly the winds shifted and the fire started heading towards several mountain towns...
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Good news! Our team web site is finally operational! We've written about forty blog posts that we need to edit and proof. We will post ten blog posts, along with photos each day until we have caught up. The competitions begin this week and continue for the next 4 weeks....
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Yesterday, my dad had me sit down with the NXT kit of parts and attempt to build the robot from a tutorial. Our team is really excited about the probability of using the NXT in this year's LEGO competition, and we really want to learn everything we can about it. The big advantage to the NXT is that...
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PHOTO IMAGEToday we learned about our latest challenge. After finishing all of our school and chores, we all gathered around the school table and read the challenge. It looks like we will have to: 1. Move molecules to certain destinations 2. Disconnect two magnets from each othe...
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PHOTO IMAGE PHOTO IMAGE PHOTO IMAGE PHOTO IMAGE Today, our competition mat and the pieces for our props finally arrived! We are so excited. This year looks very interesting. All that we know is that it has something to do with nanotechnology. After we looked over the field for a while, we unpa...
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PHOTO IMAGEToday, after solving our seemingly never ending robotic problems, Emily and I went to show the coach our finished project. He congratulated us then declared something that made our blood run cold. "I want you to fail as often as possible..." (Yikes, maybe we need a new coach) "so that d...
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This afternoon, I was helping my sister, Emily, build a robot. We had looked through the instruction books and finally chose the style of a mars lander. The design seemed simple enough and the only problem we had when making it was when we attached the gears to the base of the robot. Using a devi...
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This afternoon I was helping my sister, Emily, build a robot. We had looked through the instruction books and finally chose the style of a mars lander. The design seemed simple enough and the only problem we had when making it was when we attached the gears to the base of the robot. Using a devic...
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PHOTO IMAGEToday, Amy and I set up an obstical course for Emily and Kelly's robots using various props from previous years. Here's the challenge. The robot had to start from a bridge, knock down the ramp, successfully drive off the ramp, put a ball into a catapult, launch the catapult, and hae the...
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Yesterday, one of our sponsors, David Allen of The David Allen Company paid us a visit. He had come up here to visit with my dad and we were able to show him what our team, the LEGO Mountaineers accomplished this year. First we showed him short video clips of our competition in Newhall and Teha...
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Our team lined up with the various teams to await the award ceremony. During the long wait one of the Tehachapi judges demonstrated their high school robot to us. Afterwards we had our awards ceremony. As they called off the awards many of the descriptions of the teams who had won them sounde...
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When we got back from the technical presentation, we found out that Tehachapi event organizers had planned something very exciting. They were going to have us pair up with another team to form an alliance to compete against another pair of teams. The LEGO Mountaineers were paired up with anoth...
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In between the competitions with the robot we were called out of the room to give our technical and research presentations. We were all very excited when we were called up. The room we were to give our technical presentation in was very spacious. A table had been set up in the middle of the ro...
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Today was a very exciting day for the LEGO Mountaineers. Our team was competing again in another competition, this one in Tehachapi. When we got there, we were very nervous. This was our first time at this particular competition and we weren't quite sure what to expect. We wore the new purpl...
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We are excited to be participating in our first event of the year. We were very nervous as our turns to compete got closer. We were very tired; it had been a long day, and the event was running late. Our team is very grateful that the judges chose us to receive - the Director's Award. We are...
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We have found that we had some extra time at the end of each match, and we thought we would like to add another mission - possibly pushing in the chairs. Our next goal is to improve, as much as we can, on the playing field, until we can successfully complete every mission. We also will be prac...
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We feel that one of our best successes this year was the simplicity of our robot. We did not add extra parts this year. In the past, we wasted so much time in-between challenges attaching, or detaching pieces before we sent the robot back out again. It was too easy to knock something loose an...
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The past two years, our strength seemed to always be in our research presentation. This year, we set out with the goal of winning the Director's Award. We knew we could not do that without having a stronger and more reliable robot, and more time practicing on the competition table. We made ex...
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This weekend, our team won first place in the middle school division, and 3rd place overall for our robot performance on the field. Pilot/Co-Pilot Score 1. Faith/Amy 209 2. Lucy/Wendy 109 3. Amy/Wendy 157 4. Amy/Lucy 102 ...
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Lucy and I (Wendy) were the second group chosen to compete. It was Lucy's first time, and she was very excited. Lucy was piloting and I was the co-pilot. We were both very nervous, and our first two times at the ball failed, but we persisted, and got it on the third try. We received 109 poin...
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We enjoy sharing our blog, but we haven't heard from anyone lately....
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Today is a very exciting day, because tonight we will be competing in the Newhall Regional Tournament. This morning our team, met to review some last minute missions. Last night, our coach assigned us to pilot/copilot positions for each match. This way, everyone will have an opportunity to parti...
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Today, with Channel 9 Guy's help, we finished our research presentation board and our technical presentation board. Our team also had a surprise visitor. Lucy's grandmother came to visit us for the night and to see what we do. It was fun to show her around. She was also a big help in giving advi...
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Today we worked on the presentation boards and skit. We have finished the script for our skit and we are going to do the finishing touches at the next meeting. We also practiced drilling ourselves for the upcoming competition. Over the past few days we have had a lot of trouble with our robot...
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Today, our team had a special visitor. Channel 9 Guy flew all the way from Microsoft headquarters in Redmond Washington down to Pine Mountain Club,California to check up on us. Channel 9 Guy will be staying with us for the next few weeks so that he can learn about our robotics team and what we d...
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Tonight, our coach started the meeting by sharing with us a letter he received from the FIRST headquarters in Manchester New Hampshire. It was sent by Nancy Paul, thanking us for sending her department the DVD we had made two years ago. She complemented us on our blog site, telling us that they...
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Today our team met to fix some errors in the robot and to discuss the research presentation. After we showed our team the arm Lucy, Amy, and I worked on last week, we split up into two groups. Amy and Lucy went with Mr. Steele to fix some programming flaws. The rest of the team and I went to rea...
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This year our team has decided to aim for the Directors Award. We have been working really hard to improve our robotics skills which is something that our team has had trouble with in the past. The team decided that both for accuracy and for our technical presentation (explaining what our robot...
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Today we finished two of our missions! They were deflecting the bus signs and putting the balls into the basket hoop. Over the week Amy and I had built and experimented with a robot to solve the bus signs. After we finished it we made a flowchart of our mission. A flowchart is a simple way to di...
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Today my sister and I helped set up the playing field so that it will be ready for our next team meeting this weekend. It looks really cool. We brainstormed on different ideas the we have for the different challenges. We are going to start experimenting soon. This year is going to be really exci...
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Today we got the challenge for this year's LEGO Robotics competition. It is very exciting! This year has the hardest missions that I have ever seen. We have to program our robot to do a lot of things that a disabled person might have trouble with. Like opening a gate, putting a ball through a h...
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Today, we met with Lucy and her father to finish the playing field since Caitlin and Faith weren't here. We're almost done! I'm also excited because our coach (my dad) showed us the design for our team blog. It looks really cool. I'm looking forward to learning how to update it. I'm also looking...
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It was our first meeting today! We got a lot done. We started out by learning more about our sponsors and partners. Then we talked about the different challenges that FIRST presented to us. After that, we built some of our props that go on the playing field. The theme of this year's challenge is...
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Today my dad called Amy and me into the room and told us that our team will be using Microsoft’s product OneNote. He showed us the demonstration CD and shared with us some ways we could use this product. This product will be very useful to us in our meetings because of our limited amount o...
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I am really excited. We just received an E-mail from Mr. Allen of the David Allen Company saying that he would like to become our corporate sponsor. My teammates were really excited when we learned that he increased the amount we asked for. This will greatly help us in many extra expenses we h...
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Today started the planning for the 2004 Jr. Robotics competition. I haven't really been excited about this year's team until today, when we actually started doing something. This year our team is looking for a corporate sponsor. Tonight Amy and I sat down and put together a mind map of inf...
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It was a cold, foggy morning when we got to LEGOland in Carlsbad, California. But, even the weather couldn’t have dampened our spirits. It was our second year, and we hoped to do better. After checking in at the entrance, we were led to our table in the main tent. There, we displaye...
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Introducting.... The LEGO Mountaineers, Team 1191 We, the LEGO Mountaineers, are a group of six girls who are home-educated. Our parents brought us together to participate in the LEGO Robotic League. The purpose of the league is to involve children, ages 9-14, in math, science, robotics, a...
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