December 19 Meeting

During this brief meeting, the team talked about the tune up on the 13th. They were looking at what they needed to improve on. They still have plenty of time before the state to get everything in order.

Good Thinking!!

December 12 Meeting

Today started out as a review from the previous tune up. JackStone and BuilderBot told Thomas and AwesomeGirl what it was like. They also looked at videos of the tune up to see what they need to improve on for the competition Dec. 13th.

They were also fine tuning the robot's programs. Teamwork in Progress!!!

Thanksgiving Break - Still Learning!

The Blog has been quiet this past week due to the holiday break but some of us were still learning.
While visiting North Carolina JackStone met Dr. Grant, a professor at NC State University. Dr. Grant is the Director of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (CRIM) at North Carolina State University and a former FIRST Robotics coach to boot!
JackStone learned a bit about modern robots and what scientists are getting them to do. Things like climbing uneven rubble, walking in snow and over ice, delivering drinks and avoiding humans are just a few of their activities.

Dr. Grant also said he uses Lego Mindstorms (what we use in FLL) to teach his students in the classroom.

Thanks Dr. Grant!

It's Here!!

The Tune-Up in Lansdale, PA!! BuilderBot and JackStone were very excited and had a wonderful time!! After signing in, they got to work setting up their presentation and rolling out the mat to practice with their robot. They ran through the presentation, making sure everything was in place and putting the script fresh in their minds. They gave the judge a great performance!!



Then they had three practice rounds where they went up to the tables they would be running the robot later and got a feel for everything. The practice proved well and before long it was time to start the judging rounds!!!






After the first out of five, they were ranked at 15th. The rounds went by, and after grabbing some lunch they finally finished the last round. During the 4th round they earned 117 points!!! That being the highest scoring round. Their lowest score was still only about 60, so they did Great!!! By the end of the day, the Robot Rampagers still ranked 22nd on the score board!!!

Awesome, Great Job Robot Rampagers!!!

November 21 Meeting!

Today the team got their hands messy!! They painted a banner that will be displayed in their pit area for the state tournament. They all put their hand print on it and worked together.
After washing their hands, JackStone and BuilderBot went ahead and ran through the presentation for tomorrow's Tune-Up!!!

You'll Do Great!!

Preparing for the Tune-Up!!

JackStone and BuilderBot have been working extra hard to get there missions and presentation complete. They have about 8 different missions figured out. In some runs, the robot can complete 2 missions before coming back to base.


They also are working hard on their presentation for the judges that will explain what their project is and what the proposed solution is. The team gathered the information and made a graph and scripts to help illustrate their problem.

Looking Good!!!!

November 14 Meeting

Today the team worked on their presentation for the competition. Thomas and AwesomeGirl will not be present at the Nov. 22 competition, so they had to record their part of the presentation. That video will then be played for the judges. The team thought of presenting their information like a news broadcast. Thomas will be the interviewer and AwesomeGirl is a beekeeper that lost her bees over the winter.

This is Thomas, the interviewer
that is out and about.



This is AwesomeGirl, the beekeeper.

November 11

Today JackStone and BuilderBot got together to prepare for the competition on the 22nd. They practiced with time trials and completed about 8 different missions.

Hope You Do Well!!

November 7 Meeting

Today the team had a great day of experimenting with the robot. Awesome Girl came up with an attachment that can be used to complete several different missions.
The Robot Rampagers developed 3 different programs that have completed the missions they were designed for. They still have to polish them and make sure the robot completes the task often and not just on chance.
The team talked about the different presentations that would be required and what the competition on Nov. 22 in Lansdale, PA would be like.

Good Luck!!

What's The Buzz??

After the Oct. 31st meeting, the Robot Rampagers went on a field trip to meet an important insect to our environment. BEES!!!
The team met with Mr. Finkelstein, a local beekeeper, to talk about his bees. To begin, Mr. Finkelstein talked to everyone about insects in general, how bees came to America and different kinds of bees. One of the main things that he does is sell queen bees to other beekeepers who want to start new hives. They try to sell about 5oo queen bees in a bee year.
Mr. Finkelstein showed everyone the type of bee box he uses for his bees, but he also explained other types that are used. The tools that are used by beekeepers include the smoker and a pry bar to separate the slides. Mr. Finkelstein also showed how he collects the honey and the tools he uses to do it.

After the explanations, Mr. Finkelstein took the team, two at a time, back to his hives. They explored the hives and saw big hives, newer hives, queens and bees that had diseases.

This is what the queen bees are shipped in. The queen has a red dot of paint on her. She also has her attendants to feed and take care of her, otherwise she'll die within an hour. The box works by taking out a wood cork on the end(side with the white stuff) the white stuff is candy, that the bees will eat their way out!

Really Cool!!!!

Mark Your Calendars!

Two RR team members will be participating Saturday, November 21st, 2008 in the Tune-up in PA at Lansdale Catholic.
http://www.frc272.com/

And just announced...
The Maryland State Tournament is Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at UMBC.

GO ROBOT RAMPAGERS!

October 31 Meeting

To start the meeting, the team had some fun! They got to come up with a little skit using one real prop and two drawn on paper. They used a camera and drew a suitcase and gun. The members all had fun!!
Then it was down to business. The robot still had some weight distribution problems, so there was plenty of compromising and discussing and they finally found a solution.

To continue with some of the work from last week, they discussed the steps of certain missions. Members came up with steps to complete a mission and talked about alternate ways to complete it.

Good Compromising!!!

October 24 Meeting

The meeting started with the members handing in homework from the past weeks. Along with the homework, was nominating a patron saint for the team. They had 3 to vote on and the winning one was St. Ambrose the patron of Beekeepers. That is a good choice because their project is about how climate change affects bees and to come up with a solution to help.

Next they experimented with robot to work on the design. They were having problems with attaching a wheel on the back, so it was time to brainstorm. They came up with putting 'skis' on the back.

The only problem was that the weight distribution was off and would tip over, especially when the brakes were applied. So they were attaching pieces to the skis to offset it. Everyone had ideas and each was tested.

They also built attachments that would help complete missions during the competitions. Only a few were tried out, but the main concern was getting the main body of the robot completed.

Here is a test run with weight on the back.

October 17th

With several people sick we cancelled this week...but there is homework!

PROJECT
Builderbot - Beehive design, dimensions, maybe pictures. What does the typical hive setup look like? Are there any new or different ways to set it up? Could we inexpensively build a hive model? (not a real working one but something to use to better explain the team's ideas for winterizing if you all decide to go that route)

Thomas - Winterizing the hive. What are some typical and some innovative ways that beekeepers do this? And how else do they prepare their bees for winter? JackStone had basic info at the beginning but we want more specifics now -what most keepers do as well as interesting, less used options.

Awesome Girl- India climates - we're looking for a city with a similar climate to ours...if you can recommend one that would be great! Hint ... check the northern part of the country! Any extra info about the city/town/village and their beekeeping community will be important info too.

JackStone - Plants. Are there plants that enable bees to produce more honey than is produced from regular local flowering plants? Is there a plant being used in India or the USA that the other country is not using? Can not use? why? Could it help if it could be used? Can it be used?

GAME / ROBOT
Strategy - Pick the one mission you would do if you could choose only one. Be prepared to explain why that was your 1st choice.

Build - design on paper an attachment that will help your robot complete the mission you chose.

Program - write out all the steps the robot would have to do to complete the mission you chose starting and finishing at base. (ex. drive forward from base. turn right. travel across board in a straight line. use attachment (see design) to push/pull/lift __________. Reverse in arc/ line / turn ...etc.)

MISC.
Nominate a Saint - who would be a good intercessor for us? a scientist? a doctor? a teacher? the patron saint of beekeepers? we need one - lets pick one!

See you all Friday!
~mrs. dunphy

October 7th

We got our T-shirts today! We also had a busy meeting determining the final wording for our project problem, discussing our findings thus far, and continuing work on our robot.

On the robot we worked through the turning problem, now the rear wheel moves freely to help with turns but while working on that build we gave ourselves a new issue - our rear wheel keeps flipping up and then gets dragged about. We ran out of time before we could fix that one. Hopefully we can come up with a quick answer to that at the next meeting.


Next week we meet with Mrs. McNeil (a local bee keeper) to check out her bee equipment and discuss bees with her. Our problem? Over winter survival of Honey Bees in a Temperate Marine Climate - with our climate varying in temp and rain fall from year to year, how can hobbyist beekeepers help their colonies better survive through the winter no matter what the rain fall amounts and temperature are year round.

October 3 Meeting

The team worked on setting up the models built previously on the practice board to get know were things belonged. They also organized the missions by points on index cards to help see what one they will try to complete first.

Afterwards, they pulled out the kits and tried to free-build their own robot. The first try was pretty good, however like any other learning experience, there were defects. After figuring out how to fix some of the problems, they tried again. It kept getting better and better. The final build was the best but they will be better ones in the future.

Good Start RR's!!!!

September 26

Today the team worked hard at the Pyramid for the Build-A-Thon. The goal was to use 500 bricks max. They talked and brainstormed to figure out the best way to use all the pieces and have a good structure. Teamwork was key and many things were learned through trial-and-error. After finding solutions to the problems they had and many reassembles, it was

complete!!! 500 bricks!!!! Good Teamwork!!!!!!

After the excitement of the Pyramid building, it was down to business. The RR's discussed which problem to focus on out of a list of local problems. The one they chose was bees. During a hot summer, the flowers are not plentiful and the bees are not able to collect enough nectar to survive the winter and they die from starvation. Now that the problem was decided, they must come up with a solution. In order to do that the team must first learn about bees, so each member has research to do. JackStone will find out how bees survive in the different seasons, Awesome Girl will learn how they make honey, Thomas will find out how hives are built and Builderbot will provide the average temperature of the local area during the summers of last and this year.

Next week the team will be working on controlling and guiding the robot.

Quotes from the Team!!

JackStone said "Today was Awesome!! I can't wait for next week, we start DOING STUFF!!!!"

Builderbot said "We now have a schedule to follow for each week. The 2 things that we did today were pick a topic to find a solution for, and built the pyramid."

Great Job and Remember to have Fun!!!!!!!

September 19th

Well, it was a quiet meeting. With only 2 team members today they worked on the robot tutorials. There were some frustrations as Awesome Girl and Jack Stone could not get the robot to drive in a square. It did parallelograms and triangles but no right angles were happenin' today. Crash Dummy did have a busy day though. She survived several run overs and throw downs .... poor girl. She did do a good job of marking the starting point though!

We finished early and decided next time would be better. Here's a picture of Crash Dummy as no pictures were taken today.

September 12 Meeting

Some very important things happened at today’s meeting. First the team talked about their project, climate, and what things are used for weather. They also got homework, to find out what and how a thermometer, hygrometer and a barometer works.
Then the fun stuff began: working the robot!!!
Hooking the robot up to the computer and figuring out how it works, some experimenting started. Taking turns working different actions, the Rampagers made the robot play sound, move forward and backwards, brake, accelerate, coast and do 360’s(watch videos below!!). Needlessly to say, they had fun and are learning how to operate their robot.

Good Luck and Have lots more fun!!!!!!

Season Kickoff!!!

September 5 was our season kickoff!!!

We now know that the topic for this year is Climate!!!

The team will be doing a Build-A-Thon fundraiser to help with registration fees. The goal is to build a Lego pyramid out of 500 bricks, with sponsors pledging one cent or more per brick. The Build-A-Thon will take place on September 19th and all fundraiser pledges will be due by the Sep. 12th meeting.

The team also recieved a paper with the 19 missions, or mini-tasks, for the robot to complete. They additionally recieved a project sheet talking about the topic Climate.

These is are some of the mini-models that were completed.

Arthur and Edmund worked together to build an Ice Core Sample.(The long white peice in the middle.) Arthur said "It was challenging because all the pieces were white."

Ben's favorite project was "The Elevation House" and said he liked it because "It raised up; a bouncy house!"

Edmund's favorite project of the day "Was building the Storm."

Cortney was starting on a major part of the items needed, the robot.

What a Great Start!!!!

August 22 Meeting

At Friday's meeting, responsibilities were assigned to the team members. Some of the jobs include: researcher, builder, strategist and so on. They also were provided with a parts list to familarize themselves with the parts they will be using.
The team project was to start construction on pieces to go on the platform. Some of the projects were Lego people, a house, polar bear, and other mini models. The team plans to continue with the assembly of models during the next meeting.
Team members were also given a student/parent contract to have signed and returned next meeting.
Go Robot Rampagers!!!

August 8th Meeting

Our 1st August meeting went fairly well. With only 3 team members in attendance things were rather quiet. They worked on program tutorials and a bit of building. We found that 2 of the motors and the rechargable battery were not working properly so replacement parts have been requested and are on the way. We also found that everyone needs to work on learning the names of part pieces ... so communication will be better when it comes to building!

The next meeting will be building table mission models and working on laying down the law ... well, goals, rules, roles, etc... : )
Oh! And ordering T-shirts!

Welcome Robot Rampagers and Fans!

Welcome to our team site! Future posts will hopefully be done, or at least narrated, by our team members with the posting help of one of our young Mentors.

Check out the photos, links, and misc. on the page and check back often to see what all we are learning and doing!

~mrs. dunphy