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!!!!