The Robo Games, Part 3. Victory

The Judge's Award at LegoLand.

We won two awards. My group got one. MY group: the Robo Swag team. By the time the competition ended, we thought we did so poorly that all of our teammates left already.  Only me and one other kid stayed to collect the trophy. So, what did we win? We won the Judges Award. For interviewing well....I guess... Not for winning any competition. But that's good with me. At least we won something! The other award was for our other team, the Odd Bots. They won the On-the-Spot mission for catching the Lego pig in 8 seconds!!! That's pretty impressive. They beat the next fastest team by one second!  This is the first time ever that our Middle School Robotics team got two trophies in one competition! I'm pretty proud.

By the time the competition finally ended my mom asked me if I wanted to go on any rides (because there were absolutely no lines due to the rain). We walked through Miniland  in Legoland, which is really amazing. We also walked through this Pharaoh's Revenge thing also. I am, a wuss when it comes to haunted walks. It's like the House of Horrors at Universal Studios. I get so creeped out even though the LegoLand one is not scary AT ALL. I still bury my face in my mom's arm, close my eyes and walk through without seeing anything. I do remember seeing this tiny door in the Pharaoh's Revenge that said "Knock For Assistance". My mom wanted to knock. I did not. The last thing I want was to get a heart attack from some creepy thing popping out of a mysterious door. I guess we were supposed to look for some keys but I just pushed my mom along so we didn't find any. We went on one other ride which was a tiny roller coaster for babies called Coastersaurus. My mom was screaming the whole time, which was embarrassing because even the toddler in front of us wasn't screaming.  My mom and I are pretty pathetic when we go to amusement parks. I can't believe that last year, we even had the courage to go on Jurassic Park at Universal Studios together.

Miniland

So because of our "amazing" performance at the Robotics competition we'll be on the front page of our school's website and we'll go in front of the whole middle school to show off our awards at Monday Morning Meeting.... In our bright pink shirts.

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)