This morning will be filled with practice matches, and the match competition will get underway immediately following the 12:30 p.m. opening ceremonies. The event is free and open to the public.
Thirty-two teams from local elementary school and middle schools — including a team that flew in from the Yukon River village of Beaver for the competition, a community team and two homeschool teams — are vying today.
There are two main objectives of the FLL competition. The first is building a robot using Lego Mindstorms technology and program it to score as many points as possible in a 2.5 minute match.
The second objective is to choose a problem that scientists and engineers are trying to solve and develop an innovative solution for it, either by creating something that doesn’t exist or building something that does.
Barnette Magnet School has two teams: Team WOW and Team Mabuhay, which translates from Tagalog as “Welcome honored guests.” Students from each of the nine-member Barnette teams have been meeting after school once or twice a week the last few months and upped it to a daily basis this past week.
Thursday found teacher Kevin Marsh’s classroom a frenzy of activity as students practiced their presentation speeches, ran their inventions through their routines and reprogrammed robots by micro seconds.
Team WOW’s E-skin project evolved around an idea that Derrick Helms, 12, and his dad talked about — finding a way for prosthetic limbs to have feeling and skin to match a person’s skin tone.
The team liked the idea and the research included contacting a University of Connecticut professor Dr. Greg Sotzing, to learn about electro chromic polymer, a type of color changing plastic.
Using all the required FLL Challenge ingredients — one brain, three motors, a variety of sensors, and Legos — the team came up with an impressive design.
Team Mabuhay developed a living project and blindfolded and outfitted fourth-grader Camden Kegley with ultrasonic sensors hooked into a Lego NXT gear, explained Divon Davis, 10, a fifth-grader.
The brain was hooked to Kegley’s shirt in back and sensors were attached to his head, both shoulders and his chest.
“This helps a blind person see,” Davis said.
The sensors send out ultra sonic waves that touch an object alerting the wearer to stop before an obstacle and make a right or left hand turn
This is the fourth year the Barnette Robotics Club is competing. “Maybe we don’t win, but we have a lot of fun,” Marsh said.
The noise level rose from time to time as each team took turns testing and cheering their robots on a 4-foot by 8-foot sheet of plywood covered with a colorful themed design.
The objective was to have a programmed robot carry a Lego heart patch or pacemaker and deliver it to the upper part of a body silhouette on the board. Each successful foray results in points.
Jordan Effinger, 13, was puzzling over why his team’s robot was not performing as well as it had been previously.
“The battery may be running low,” he said.
Teammate Samuel Mihm interjected with, “Or maybe the battery was low when you were programming it.”
A quick change over to a new, charged battery pack rectified the problem.
Marsh, who teaches a robotics class at Barnette and enjoys it as a hobby, started up the extracurricular club four years ago. The first year four students regularly attended. Today, the after-school club numbers 20 active members.
“We’re having fun and we’re learning,” Marsh said.
Contact staff writer Mary Beth Smetzer at 459-7546.
Great article, and smart kids. It's good to see people getting involved in truly useful areas of robotics and independent of DARPA.
These children must not be allowed to dabble in science. It only distracts them from what should be their true course in life: to follow the teachings of Sarah.