New Shop at Mitsuwa Marketplace

We love going to Mitsuwa Marketplace at 3760 S Centinela Ave, Los Angeles, for a quick bite at the food court there. We can get a bowl of noodles, or curry rice from one of the food stands. While we wait for our food to be cooked, we like to roam around and visit the book store/cafe, or check out this really cute store called Trendy.  It's fun to browse through some manga or Japanese fashion magazines at the book store, or check out or buy some cute gifts from Trendy.

Sadly, Trendy close down lately. There's been an empty space at that store front for a few months. However, today we discovered that a new store opened up in its place a few weeks ago.  It's called Power Anime. In the display case facing customers, there is an awesome giant Mazinkaiser robot (we could be wrong).  Inside, there are all kinds of smaller but cool anime action figures. Apparently Power Anime used to be in the Westside Pavilion, but moved to the Mitsuwa marketplace. It's probably a good move too because we never noticed it at the Westside Pavilion, but here, it's immediately noticeable.

A temporary Marion Crepes place is also open at the Mitsuwa Marketplace, but for only a month, until November 4. So it's only around for another week. Don't miss it.

The Robo Games, Part 2. Catching the Pig

The LegoLand competition is a big event. For my school, since I’m in the Robotics class, if I don’t go to the competition, my grade will be impacted in a big way. We have to be at LegoLand at 8:30 in the morning (the competition starts at 9) so I had to get up at 5:30 to drive to LegoLand to be there on time. The whole competition lasts until 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon. We can't really go on the LegoLand rides either because we only have 10 minute breaks in between each competition. It sucks. On top of that it was raining so hard the day we went, most of the rides were closed, and whenever we walked from the theater to the pit (where we prepare our robots) we get drenched in water.

Me and a teammate in our pink t-shirt. Judge behind in farm hat.

     Before the actual competition, there were judges who walked around to interview us. (They all wore farm hats to match the farm theme so you could tell them apart from the rest of the crowd.) They asked us to show them our programs, describe how we tackled our missions, and scribbled our responses on a clipboard. Then they thanked us and walked away.

The actual competition and theater is pretty scary because the competition is projected on a giant screen behind the stage. That means everyone can see if you make one mistake. My team was very easy to spot because our t-shirt was bright pink with my design in black. We had two and a half minutes to try and fit in as many missions as we can to earn the most possible points. Then we leave, go back to the pit for 10 minutes, fix our robot, and go back on stage. We get to do this three times to try to improve our score. Each time mine got so close, even pulled the lever but failed to accomplish the mission. Our scores for the three times were 150, 200, and 75.

Exhausting right? So we get a break after that and get to eat lunch and go on rides? No. We  have to go do the On-the-Spot mission. This year, the mission involved letting loose a Lego pig that's strapped onto a robot that moves in circles and we have to program our robot to catch the pig without damaging the robot. Another catch. We start on one half of the table and a competitor starts on the other side. We have to compete to see who gets the pig first. And it must be knocked onto our side of the table. If we knock the pig onto our opponent’s side of the table they win. So, we get 30 minutes (that's why it's called the on the spot mission) to practice our program. This may seem like a lot of time, but it takes a long time designing attachments for the robot and programming it to run the way you want it to.

To find out how we did, see our next blog: The Robo  Games. Part 3. Victory.

The Robo Games: Part 1: The Competition

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I've been on the Middle School Robotics team this semester. I chose this elective with my dad at the beginning of the year, and I've hated it. First of all, most kids in the class are boys except for me, and two others girls. Sadly, the two other girls are on a team together (with other boys) and I'm all alone in a group with all boys. Two of the boys in our group did everything, while the other three of us did nothing all class because we didn't know how. The class started to grow on me when I created the t-shirt design for my class (I love using Adobe Illustrator) and tried working on making a program for my robot. My team name is Robo Swag. (This is what I get for being in a team with all boys)

Each year the Legoland challenge is different. This time the challenge was farm related. For my challenge I had to move my robot out of base, turn left, and position the robot to pull back a handle which releases the "water" into the fields to feed the crops. (The water is really a blue ball).  There are many obstacles that you have to try and avoid. It was actually pretty fun programming what the robot should do, how many rotations or degrees it should move and watching the robot carry out its tasks. It's pretty hard to picture all of this but I'll try my best to explain. You can choose out of several missions which ones you want to do. For example, knocking the rooster off the fence, using the tractor to plow the fields, finding the needle in the haystack, catching the cow and the pig, and so on and so forth. My mission actually worked pretty well, considering no one helped me learn how to do the programming, and I had to try out my program by trial and error. I almost got excited for the competition at Legoland. Almost.
(For more on how the competition went, see my next blog, Robo Games, Part 2: Catching the Pig)