TransformersRobotics

Georgia State Championship Tournament

The FIRST Lego League, Georgia State Championship Tournament took place on January 29^th at Georgia Tech.  The Transformers won the first place Innovation and Strategy Award.  You can view a short movie of our robot performing missions with our strategy on YouTube.  As the presenting judge announced, our team “thunk” the best!  This award recognizes a team that uses solid engineering practices and a well-developed strategy to design and build an innovative, high performing robot.

 

We had fun, but it was a REALLY long day!

Research Project

This year’s theme is Biomedical Engineering.  You can view a 5-minute version of our presentation on YouTube.  The teams were to research body parts, chose one to study, and then find a problem to solve.  The Transformers chose the eye and the problem to solve is that the majority of people do not go to the eye doctor.  So the team invented a machine to bring the eye doctor to the people.

They invented the iScan! to be placed in stores where people go all of the time like the grocery, drug store or mall.  It analyzes a digital image of your retina, and then tells you to get to the eye doctor if there are problems like macular degeneration, cataracts or retinopathy.

 

Warner Robins Super Regional Qualifier Tournament

On January 8^th, at the Warner Robins Super Regional qualifier tournament, the Transformers won the first place Gracious Professionalism Award.  This award means that we competed like crazy, but did so with respect for others; we acted with integrity and community.  The team made the TV News on WMAZ, CH13 Macon, GA.

Kids Getting Award

The team had a blast at Starbase Robins!  We got to stay overnight in a hotel and toured the Museum of Aviation throughout the day when we were not actively engaged.

The Transformers are advancing to the Georgia State Championship tournament which takes place on January 29^th, 2011 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM at Georgia Tech!

Buttons, Starbase and Computer Destruction!

The kids finished the buttons for the upcoming Super Regional Tournament in Warner Robbins, GA on Jan. 8th all day at Starbase Robins an aviation museum.  We get to compete under the suspended aircraft on display -- how cool!

 

Almost 200 buttons for give-aways

 

For their project they want to make a mock-up of their invention.  They dissected an old laptop to get the screen, but also had fun pulling out every component they could

 

Kids dissect an old laptop

 

Research Project Highlights

Across the globe about 160 million people are blind or have low vision.  The various reasons are seen in the graph below.  Most causes are preventable.

Global Blindness and Low Vision Causes

 

In the USA the top causes of blindness and low vision are seen below in the graph.  With early detection by an eye doctor, most blindness and low vision issues can be prevented or treated.

 

USA Blindness and Low Vision Causes

 

But most people do not get diagnosed until it is too late!  We learned that 66% of people have not been to the eye doctor in the last 12 months (46% of people over 65 years old).

 

Percent people that have not seen the eye doctor

 

The problem is that most people do not get to the eye doctor, so they do not get early treatment and go blind or have low vision.

 

Our solution puts diagnostic equipment where people go all of the time like the grocery, drug store or the mall (like those old blood pressure machines).  We invented the iScan! It is a special camera that takes a digital photo of your eye, and then some software analyzes the image for precursors to problems like Macular Degeneration or Retinopathy.  Since people can get scans over a longer period of time, it can also find cataracts, glaucoma and other eye problems.  The iScan! will print out your image and tell you to get to the eye doctor immediately if there is a problem; it will even e-mail or fax the doctor for you.

 

iScan! System

 

 

 

Expert Visit and Robot Names

Guest Expert

We had an ophthalmologist talk to us about the eye.  We discussed its parts and functions, then some of the problems we can have with our eyes.  His most important advise for kids -- wear good, UV-resistant sunglasses when you go outside.  He told us that there is a lot of research going on with corneal transplants and macular degeneration.  Below are pictures of a corneal transplant and what someone with macular degeneration might see.

 

Robot Naming

We have been blessed with two NXT controller "brains".  So we build a robot, then clone it for a back up.  We always name them, so that the we can tell them apart in the programming software.  This is also a fun task!  This year, we brainstormed a bunch of names.  Each team member got to vote for five.  This narrowed the candidate names to four.  They then got two votes.  And the winning two names are...Billy-Bob-Joe, Jr. and Rafiki.  Th e original list is pictured below.

 

 

Eye Expert and Prototyping

Expert

We have an expert coming to talk about the eye and related problems.

Prototypes

The team is working hard as time ticks by to the regional tournament!  They built three attachments and are working on a third robot prototype.

 

Team Building and Sensor Class

Team Building

The Transformers had a team building exercise tonight.  The objective was to raise a tennis ball to the coaches hand using only four dowel rods.  The kids quickly figured out how to do it, but had troubles dropping the ball many times, until they started talking to each other.

Four Team Mates Work Together to Raise a Ball with Dowel Rods

Sensor Class

We had a sensor class to learn how the FLL-allowable sensors work.  We got to demo the Light Sensor, Rotation Sensor, Touch Sensor and Ultrasonic Sensor.  Team member, PumpkinBot, who is keeping our engineering notebook, recorded some data (see below).  We will use this when programming our robot to sense the environment on the playing field.

 Light Sensor and Ultrasonic Sensor Graphs

Early Research and Building

The team decided to research the human eye.  What are some problems with eyes?  How can technology help?  They are pictured here thinking hard.

R&D Work -- clockwise from L to R: Lego Star Wars Kid, Blaize, LegoLrn98, PumpkinBot, Lego Coin Collector 777

We also started building the robot chassis (frame) that must be sturdy, yet light weight.  This is hard work and we need to have fun too!

 
 Lego Star Wars Kid & Coach R.Steve, Coach ASCII (ASsistant Coach II)
 

 

Little Versus Big Wheels Experiment

Wheel Size Choice

We built two simple chassis the same size as the NXT brick and put wheels on them.  One had smaller wheels, the other had larger wheels.  We rolled each of them exactly one rotation and recorded the distance they moved (see photos).

We then discussed what size wheels we want on our robot and why.  Everyone yelled "BIG"!  Because it will go faster.

 

 

Body Part/System Choice

We listed all of the body parts, functions and systems we could think of, then used multi-voting to choose the one on which to focus our initial research.  The "eyes" have it!