Quick Pix

VBRC 2011 1st place winners

VBRC 2011 2nd place winners


CAD Prototyped Projects - F35, Terminator Hand, & Robbie the Robot

Next Robotics After School = Tuesday, Nov. 29

Welcome to the 2011-2012 school year. There are plenty of ideas and energies around the labs. Eagles are going full throttle!!!

UPDATE: Our first robotics meeting has been changed to Oct. 6 after school. The topics will surround the 2011-2012 competitions, various materials, and possible teams. See you then!

VBRC 2011 update

The electronics and robotics students did an OUTSTANDING job this year. The competition was fierce, and the students helped each other in the pits all day, making it very collaborative (gracious professionalism). These are a few of the pix we had from the day.

The students had to stay at the start zone and guide their robot to the 'shack' to open the door, retrieve the dangerous biohazard objects, return them to the drop zone, and then go rescue the soldier hostage. Different strategies were used, and different successes were met with just as many faults, to be modified and fixed by the next round of course!

Some robots had an onboard camera, but most just used the camera that was mounted above the shack.

At the end of the day, our students earned 1st, 2nd ,3rd, 4th and 5th in the Level 2 VBRC 2011 Competition! We also had an electronics student team get 1st in the Level 1 VBRC 2011 Competition (basketball style w/ smaller bots)! Way to go Eagles!!!!

VBRC 2011 - Drivetrain Systems

So here are this year's students' drivetrain systems for the solution of the "dispose of the radioactive devices and rescue the soldier" event, a.k.a. VBRC 2011. This year's event has 3 obstacles: sand pit, gravel pit, and a "mountainous" region (not designed/ defined by instructors yet). To get over the 3 obstacles, some students went with a flexible drive systems so the robot could handle the angles of the terrain of obstacle 3 (it will cover 75% of the width of the track, so you have to go over it).

A robot starts at one end and goes down a 35' track, through the 3 obstacles, and into the shack where our soldier is being held hostage. First dispose of the radioactive items and take them to the drop-zone, then come back for the soldier. The shack has live video back to a TV where the human operator is standing. Our school's robots will also have wireless cameras on most of them so the students can get a clear picture of the action on their laptops, also set up next to the human operator near the beginning.

Some have flexible drivetrains, some have 6 wheels, & some have tank treads. Continuous rotation servos and 12V DC motors are used for movement.

Some have anti-rollover systems & independent suspensions.

And remember kids:

Next post, manipulators and end effectors!

MUSIC - math in various forms

Maybe we could fund education instead of war....

So with the various atomic threats on the pacific islands from the tsunami, I thought it necessary to share the thing that bonds us throughout the universe - math. Nuclear physics are something that has caused nightmares among scientists and scholars for decades, so to know & see how fragile the nuclear power systems can be is scary, as mother Earth is much more powerful than man.

It was math and science through discoveries that got us here, now it needs to be human compassion and preparedness that gets us through this disaster and into the next generation.

So to the younger generations, use your time wisely, for tomorrow is not promised. Make good healthy decisions, love your family (if you're lucky enough to have one), and get some skills (survival and technological).

I tried to go from different types of music (math in sequence), so get the message any way you like. These songs (poetry put to music) are centered around educating yourself through the environment you are familiar with, whether it is the suburbs, the corn fields, the mountains, or the cities.
CADJEDI recommends your eardrums listen, not just hear, the following:

MOS DEF: 'New World Water', 'Mathematics'
Ben Harper: 'With My Own Two Hands'
John Lennon: 'Working Class Hero'
NAS: 'I Know I Can', 'The Message', 'Surviving The Times', 'Poison'
A Tribe Called Quest: 'Stressed Out', 'Check The Rhime'
Bad Religion: 'A Thousand More Fools', 'New Dark Ages'

Charlie Daniels: 'A Country Boy Can Survive', 'Long Haired Country Boy'

Carolina Chocolate Drops: 'Cornbread & Butterbeans'

NOFX: 'Regaining Un-Consciousness'

Fugazi: 'Long Division'

Genesis (or Disturbed): 'Land of Confusion'

Dag Nasty: 'Under Your Influence', 'Exercises'

Ten Foot Pole: 'Old Man'

The words are what matters. Music is a flavor made in mathematical patterns, find your favorite.

I'll post some new 2011 robot and CAD pix soon!

-NuTtY PrOfEsSoR

Time is the distance.

Yes, things are moving in the realm of education again . It is a good start to what should be a constructive year in the area of design & creativity.

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This is a light switch / motion sensor project (reliable to 22') mounted to a test wall section w/ a standard light switch. If it does not detect movement within the specified time via battery efficient 9V Propellar circuit, it helps save AC power by turning the light switch off (single servo motion). It will also turn on automatically on motion detection depending on the time settings programmed.

**************************Some plastic forms the students made for the school.**************************

**************************A variety of about half of our current B Class robots.**************************

*********************Transforming materials in the kiln room (home of the iron chef)*********************

A.Y.S.

At Your Service, or AYS (pronounced ace), is a project the students completed for the Animatronics competition in TSA (Technology Student Assoc.). Having done TSA for a number of years (9), I can say that are clear positive and negative things at the regional, state, and national levels. When we won first in System Control at Nationals in 2005 (robotic legos), I was ecstatic to be the advisor back then. Since then and many politics later, we are still entering students into these TSA events. I am very proud of the 2010 seniors that took this comedian idea and turned into a full on bartender with audio; taking orders and telling jokes the whole way to #1 National Champs!

A.Y.S. uses 2 VEX bricks with a slew of servos (continuous rotation and 210^) for the head, arm, and hand/ finger controls. Potential energies (gear boxes, rubber bands and springs) help with torque issues.

We were originally using PROPELLAR chips and circuits, but time contraints and audio issues made the team use an applet for the audio.

The hands grip and lift the cups. Besides the four fingers (Simpson's style), these are well made reps of generic human movements.

There are also a light and ultrasonic sensor that react and start the operations of the robot (when it detects you, it starts taking 'orders' / asking for tips and telling jokes). These are seen in the center with PWM wires and the ping sensor is under the front of the bar to detect movement.

This is the ABS prototyped head, drawn in 3D CAD (Inventor) then PRINTED, no bull, in our Dimension prototyping machine (check earlier blogs on DU frames and TIE fighters created in this machine). A servo controls the movement of the mouth to match the audio and another servo also controls the eye movement to 'watch' the human for interactions. The students did a BUNCH of trial and error to get the voice to match the movements of the jaw, and they used JAVA to push an applet that has the audio from an attached laptop.

So how does AYS move? This was the first system that the students had to build back in the Fall. We went with a roller coaster connection system on some old Bosch framing we had laying around. It worked great, powered by a car window motor for slower movements up and down the blue bar.

This is bad pic of the inside of the robot (rat's nest!), but it has a Victor to control the wheels (window motor) the VEX bricks, and the batteries ( 2 VEX 7.2 volt and a 12 volt 1.3amp). Oh, and lots of wires, seen here in "being worked on" mode.

Thx to the seniors who worked on this project:

J Linc, Silvio, Tedesco, and the Tanap.

Big thanks to LINDAB engineering for the spiral round we used for the body here and on the R2D2 unit!