FIRST Lego League 2012- Senior Solutions

Today was the Pocatello Qualifier for our FLL robotics teams.  I had two teams again this year- one of 7th and one of 8th graders.  It's been a looonnnggg couple of months prepping for this- most of which felt like I was talking to myself, but as usual, the teams managed to really pull it together in the last week.

This years challenge was centered around Senior Citizens and problems they may have as they get older.  The competition has four parts- Core Values (teamwork), Research Project, Robot Design, and everyones favorite, the Robot Competition.  Neither team did well in the Robot competition- the 8th Grade team "The Old Farts" could have gotten a boatload of points if everything had gone perfectly, but they had some sensor and battery issues that kept them in about the middle of the pack.  The 7th grade team (S.L.O.- Senior Lego Organization) didn't have any working programs at game time, but over the course of the day managed to get a few working between rounds.

The Old Farts even managed to win one of the Core Values awards, and are going to the State Tournament in Twin Falls!  Hopefully the extra month will give them time to work out the bugs in their programs.

Some pics from the day.

Setting up in the pit.



Furiously writing and testing programs...




In the ring.






Final score, Old Farts:  135.



Final Score, Team SLO: 85.

Best run of the day:  325 points!!!




Old Farts receiving their award.

 

Long day, glad its over and everyone had fun.

Cafe Racer

So... I really don't think this is all that great, but I have wanted to build a cafe racer since before cafe racers were cool.  I wanted a supermoto before anyone knew what they were.  I wanted to build a "replica" board track racer of a Flying Merkel, but every single time, someone beats me too it.  I just never have the time or money to do it before it gets cool.  That means that the next big thing will be home built frakenstien military bikes- and I'm already starting to see "zombie apocalypse" bikes, which means my next great idea will have been done before I get a chance to do it.

Anyways, I've been working on this for well over a year now.  This bike is POJ, if you read back aways I wrote several "chapters" about finding and fixing it up- it was my first ever bike.  I am slowly working on turning it into a Cafe, but without and permanent cutting / hacking so I could someday restore it back to original if I wanted.  Its getting closer, but I hit a snag trying to find a plug for the oil pump, so I thought what the heck, lets try making a tank.

Here's where I'm at.




Pretty ugly, but its a start.  The seat will get cut way down and the tank will be cut down an inch on the top and almost two off of the bottom, marked with the lines here:

 

It's been a fun project, just a very slowwww one.  I plan on making the first tank out of plain old cold rolled sheet, but I'm going to try brazing- something I've never done but would like to at least be able to show my students.  If all goes well, I will make a second one out of aluminum sheet.  Never really worked with aluminum, so that could be interesting.  REALLY need to figure out what to do about the oil pump plug and finish up the kickstand and rearsets- they are close, just need a spring for the kickstand and a cross brace for the rearsets.  Yes, those are bmx bicycle pegs for foot pegs... 

33.3333333333%

First Trimester done.  Sure flew by...

Thought I would share this.  The woods teacher across the hall taught a Construction Trades class this last tri, and this is one of the projects they did.  It's a working wooden model of a backhoe, complete with water-powered hydraulic rams (syringes).


 
Works great, too!  If he spent some time getting all of the air out of the system it would be a lot faster, but as it was he had come in on a non-student school day to finish it up.



On a completely unrelated note...  My 9 year old wanted to do some experimenting last night.

 

He's fine, didn't even get zapped, but it sure scared the bejeebers out of him.  He says he won't ever do it again unless he has the proper safety equipment, tools, and Mom and Dad's permission...  Not quite the message we were trying to convey when we were talking to him about it, but I guess it will have to do? 

Air engines and Sketchup Animations

Been tinkering with this for the last couple of weeks.  A new trimester starts next Monday, and I get to teach a new class.  This is one of the projects I'm hoping will turn out well...  We'll see.  I found this cool air engine project on instructables.com  :

http://www.instructables.com/id/Air-Engine/

As you can see, it is VERY involved, and uses about 30 different machine tools that I don't have in my classroom...  So I set about to re-create it using nothing more than a drill press, a welder, and various hand tools.  Here's what I came up with.

The class this is for is an Engines & Metals class, so there has to be some welding...  Making the "crankcase".





Making the cylinder.


First attempt at a piston- using an allen bolt I had sanded down.  Didn't work- didnt have enough piston skirt and it would get kinked sideways and jam.



Beggining assembly- the piece of bicycle chain was used for the crankshaft.


Exploded view of parts.  Note the piston- I cheated a little and spun it down on my Smithy Lathe.  I think with the right size drill bit and metal rod, I can get it to work with some light sanding in the drill press.


Assembled!


 
Some vid of it running!



And this was a breakthough for me- I finally figured out how to "animate" stuff in Sketchup.  I did this using the Proper Animation plugin.  Fairly simple, hoping I can get it to work a little smoother.  Still playing with it.

 



So there you go.  I have several changes in mind for the one my students will build, hopefully making it a little simpler to lay out and build without using any machine tools.  Watch for some samples in a few weeks!

Mikuni Mouse

Absolutely no plan in mind... Just start cutting. 

So I had an old carburetor I wanted to cut up to make a cutaway.  I started cutting and realized I would have a fairly large chunk leftover.  I have no idea how my mind finally arrived at this particular destination, but as luck would have it a computer mouse and a Mikuni Carburetor were about to cross paths.

Had this mouse that worked, but had some loose buttons.



Had this carb I had cut up...



Cut the mouse up a little more.



Machine a bigger hole in the carb.



after GOBS of mucking around- the final set of parts.




Assembled and working!

"CompuStow"

This year has been pretty rough as far as reserving the computer lab goes...  There were a lot of changes this year and as a result all of the available computer labs got booked over the periods that I was supposed to have access to them.  Makes it really hard when the only one I have access to is the Library, and half the teachers in the school are fighting for it too!

In the last 3 years, I've managed to go from 1 1/2 working computers in my classroom to 14.  This was plenty for Lego Robotics because we work in pairs.  When I do my CAD unit or if we need to do any individual computer time, I would have to schedule a lab.  I was out of space to add more computers, and then I had a *ligghhhttt bullllbb!* moment.  I call it the CompuStow.



 

Still have a lot of things I want to do with it, but it's useable!  Need to do something with the cords and put some handles on it to make it easier to get in and out. 

Storing the computers like this will give me more computers without taking away any of my shop workspace.  Plan on trying out these two for awhile to see how it works, then if I can scrounge up a few more flat screen monitors, I'd like to do the 4 computers I already have taking up one full table and maybe 2 more after that, bringing my total to 19 computers.

Some work in progress pics:

 




And what it was SUPPOSED to look like... I was hoping to get the smaller flat screen monitors that have the computer mounted to the back of them, but that didnt work out.


Just for fun, the rest of the computer lab.