Still Following Lines

While this could have been the year of the line follower, it is instead the year without a perfect score.  Those thick black lines with generous white borders leading directly to important items on the mat. Such promise.

To promote the use of line following at State, here are two highlights from the Regionals.

At the first regional of the year, a team complained that this algorithm was too slow.  It is.  In fact, it's remarkable that it moves at all.  Look closely.  If a motor is turned on, it's immediately turned off.

It's even more mysterious when considering the firmware on the NXT.  The firmware worries about the motors and the sensors and at regular intervals gives up a slice of time for our programs.  During that slice of time, one or more program blocks may be processed.  Given the position of the motor off block, no movement might be expected.

Nothing like a test.  It works.  Add it to your list of line following algorithms.

How to impress a Judge

At another Regional, when asked if they used any sensors, a team said no.  Did you try any?  No.  How about early in the season?  Oh, you mean a line follower?  Yea, ah . . . I don't think it's on this laptop.

Then he clicked New and proceeded to program the standard line follower from memory.

I don't suggest doing this.  There shouldn't be enough time.  I was impressed.

Legoland Tournament - Day 2

Our team met back at LEGOLAND early on Sunday morning. The first thing we did was head over to the robot performance arena for a practice run. The robot performance area had a big stage with two sets of tables. The spectators watched from raised seats on one side of the state. For the practice run, there was no scoring. A referee just blew a whistle when it was time to start the 2:30 minute run, and the teams ran their robots. Our team was not quite ready when the whistle blew, and the run did not go well, but at least the light sensors worked properly indoors.

Next on our schedule was the "Core Values" judging. For this tournament, this replaced the Teamwork judging portion of the tournaments in Minnesota. The overall scoring was slightly different at this tournament also - it was 33% for Project, 33% for Core Values, and 33% for Robot performance and design. For the Core Values judging, the team had to first perform a teamwork exercise. The team was given a box of bricks, and told to build something that showed how our team represented core values.

Our team built two figures shaking hands - one represented The Fizz, and the other represented another team. After the exercise, the judging involved the more usual questions and answers.

After core values judging, the team had our three robot performance runs. How the robot runs started was a little different than in Minnesota. There was no "3 2 1 Lego" - instead, the teams were given a 10 second warning, and then a whistle was blown to signal the start. The first run went OK. The robot successfully inserted the bone bridge in the leg, but kicking the soccer ball failed, so the team scored 320. The second run had problems. The other team hit the patent hand before us. Then inserting the stent failed. Several other missions failed, and the run scored 255.

Before the final run, the team made a small adjustment to the program for the special bone repair mission. The adjustment worked and we scored the goal! We scored 345 on our final run, missing only the common bone repair on the missions the robot attempted (our maximum possible point total was 370). This score put us in 3rd place at that time (the afternoon runs pushed us down to 5th).

After lunch, the team headed over to the LEGOLAND water park. The team enjoyed the water slides, and floating on the lazy river collected LEGO bricks. It was a great way to relax after the excitement of the morning.

Around 4:30pm, the team headed back to the LEGOLAND lawn for the closing ceremonies. Our team did not win any awards, but we were happy to see The Things and Just Ducky both win trophies for different project categories. Another team from Minnesota, the TwizBots, finished 19th in robot performance. Also, one of the teams in our pit area, The 4th Motor from Wisconsin, was named the overall champion.

After the tournament ended, the team celebrated the season with dinner together at a nearby restaurant. The restaurant even had a giant wall of "fizzy" bubbles that changed color. It was great end to a fun trip and a wonderful season.

Legoland Tournament - Day 1

Our team members arrived in San Diego one or two days before the tournament. Some kids visited family and friends in the San Diego area, some visited the San Diego Zoo, and another visited the Wild Animal Park.

On Saturday, the team members joined up at LEGOLAND, which is in Carlsbad, about 35 miles north of San Diego harbor. After the team checked in, we were allowed to enter the park. We're escorted to our pit area, which was in the Build and Test building.

There were seven other teams in our room in the Build and Test building, including an team from Wisconsin, The 4th Motor, and many other teams in the room next door. Many teams exchanged small items. Our team gave out Zotz candy (it's fizzy). Buttons were a popular item to exchange, and the girls on our team liked to collect them.

After our team unpacked and said hello to the other teams, we did a quick rehearsal for our Project presentation, and then headed out for the opening ceremonies.

The opening ceremonies were held on the LEGOLAND lawn, right next to Miniland. Miniland is incredible! It has miniature replicas of seven areas of the USA, including New York city and Washington DC. We watched a marching band near the Capitol building, a motorcade deliver the president to the White House, and trolley cars go up the hills of San Francisco.

After opening ceremonies, we had to quickly get ready for our robot and project judging sessions. The judging sessions were held in small tents. Because the tents were small, there was only room for a couple of spectators. Robot judging was first. It was a little different from our normal technical judging, because the judges didn't split some team members off for a separate programming interview.

Project judging was just ten minutes after the technical judging. It was also in a small tent. This session was only for the project presentation and related questions - there would be a separate Core Values judging the next day.

After the judging, the team tried out the robot on one of the practice tables available to the teams. The table was just outside the building for our pit area. It was terrible! Most of the missions failed! We quickly realized that having the table outside in the sunlight caused all of our light sensor readings to have problems. The robot performance runs the next day would be inside, but it was still strange to see the robot behave so badly on the practice table.

After lunch, the team went off to explore LEGOLAND while waiting for callbacks to be posted. We were called back for Robot Design!

The robot design callback was also held in a tent, but this time there were many more judges.

After our callback, we went back to exploring LEGOLAND. There were many fun rides, including the Lost Kingdom laser shooter ride, and the Technic Roller Coaster. Too soon, the park was closing for the day. The team left to get ready for the next day.

Fizz places 5th in Robot Performance, The Things and Just Duck-e win awards

Hello from LegoLand!

The Fizz finished 5th out of 75 team in robot performance, scoring 345 in our best round.

Fellow teams from Minnesota, The Things, and Just Duck-e, won awards in research. The Things placed second in research presentation, and Just Duck-e placed second in research solution.

We'll put up more posts with pictures and details of our exciting trip soon!

Line Follower

Hello again!
Another technique that our team has used for several years is a two light sensor line following MyBlock. The MyBlock uses the difference between the light sensor readings to calculate a value to feed into a Move blocks steering input.

We wrote up an explanation of this MyBlock and made it available.

We hope you find it useful.

Hydrogen Peroxide visiting the Gateway Arch

The team found time on Saturday morning to visit the Gateway Arch. It was a beautiful day to visit it with all the other FIRST teams. The team also went to the Black Eye Peas concert that was only open to the FIRST teams.

Hydrogen Peroxide - 3rd Place Mechancial Design Award

There was tremendous competition in every category. We were awarded 3rd place in Mechancial Design. I was a great way to end a great season in FLL.