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MQSeries.net Forum IndexArchives - AllCapitalware sponsored Markham Homeschool Roboteers get 2nd

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RogerLacroix
PostPosted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 3:43 pm Post subject: Capitalware sponsored Markham Homeschool Roboteers get 2nd Reply with quote

Jedi Knight

Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 3252
Location: London, ON Canada

All,

For over 2 months, my wife (Cynthia) has been running a home-school class on Fridays to teach the kids how to do Lego Robotics. The class started out with 15 kids with the goal to teach how to build and program a Lego robot and then go to the Niagara Regional Tournament on Dec 3 (yesterday).

Over time, some kids dropped out and some just could not make it to yesterday's tournament, so we ended up with a team of 5. This was their first Lego tournament and they were 1 team out of 23 teams. Most of the teams were from schools that had been doing this for years.

To even the playing field a little bit for them, Capitalware sponsored 100% of the team. i.e. paid for Lego equipment, robots, practice table, team T-shirts, computers and even a laptop for the actual tournament. You need a laptop because you may need to adjust the programming because the lighting conditions may be different at the tournament.

Each team had to do a presentation at the tournament of a topic related to the ocean (general theme of the tournament). They also judge the teams on 'team spirit' (One of our kids was dressed up as a Lego Robot. i.e. team mascot.). But the main focus obviously is on the 3 rounds, where your best score from any round would be used to determine your position for the tournament playoffs. Only the top 8 teams get to compete in the playoffs.

Each competition round only lasts 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and you have to get your robot to do as many 'successful' missions as possible. i.e. raise the flags, push a shark, knock the dolphin from its pen, etc.. Robots are NOT remote controlled but rather the kids must program the robots and use sensor for light, motion or distance to have the robots control their action. Each mission has a different point value (the harder the mission, then the more points it is worth). 2 teams complete at the same time, on side-by-side tables.

Almost everything that could go wrong went wrong for them. The robot kept on losing its firmware (basic operating system) on Friday night & Saturday morning. Programming slot # 3 of the robot kept deleting / dropping the code that was stored in it. Between time-trial rounds 2 and 3, at a practice table, a kid picked up the robot, but the blocks separated and the main robot body fell to the floor and broke into a hundred pieces. This happened about 30 minutes before time-trial round # 3. Another team helped to put it together but it was not working very well for the last time-trial and they basically got no points.

Lucky, their first time-trial round got them a good score and they ended in 6th place for the playoffs. Between the 3rd time-trial round and the beginning of the quarter-final playoff round, they had an hour and they were to able to get the robot back working.

In their quarter-final round, they were up against the 3rd place team. Everything went reasonably well and they won the round. Hence, that meant they were in the semi-finals. In their semi-final round, they had an awesome round, and so did the other team. Both teams set high-score point for the entire day, 212 vs 216. Lucky, they were the ones with 216 and so they went to the final playoff round.

In the final round, they had a good round, not awesome round. For some reason, the robot's arm was getting stuck on the 'raising the flag' mission. After the round, they realized that the flags were not laying flat on the table. They should have asked the judge to fix it but didn't realize it until the round was over. Another lesson learned from the day!! They only lost by 18 points, soooooo close.

Anyway, 2nd place gets them into the Ontario Provincial Lego Robotics Finals on Dec. 10. The winner of the provincial finals gets to go to the North American Lego Robotics competition in Atlanta, Georgia in April next year.

They received 2 trophies. Richard (second from right) is holding the Lego trophy and Kyle (far right) is holding the official 2nd place trophy, plus they each got a medallion for finishing in the top 3.



Therefore, this week they are going practice and practice what they did in the semi-final round (where they had the awesome round). Because if they can make that performance a repeatable event then they have a real shot at winning the provincial finals.

So, it will be REALLY interesting next Saturday.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix

And yes, I'm proud of my boys.
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PeterPotkay
PostPosted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 5:34 pm Post subject: Reply with quote

Poobah

Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 7717


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Keep Calm and MQ On
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hopsala
PostPosted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:17 pm Post subject: Re: Capitalware sponsored Markham Homeschool Roboteers get 2 Reply with quote

Guardian

Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 960

RogerLacroix wrote:
Robots are NOT remote controlled but rather the kids must program the robots and use sensor for light, motion or distance to have the robots control their action.

Wow, that's pretty impressive... Good luck at the provincial finals!
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sjensen
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 1:42 am Post subject: Reply with quote

Centurion

Joined: 18 Dec 2003
Posts: 134
Location: London

Great! Well done. Best of luck for the finals.
As it is LEGO: 'Held og lykke'

Cheers
Stefan
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RogerLacroix
PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:03 pm Post subject: Reply with quote

Jedi Knight

Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 3252
Location: London, ON Canada

Well, the Provincial Final tournament went much, much smoother for them than last week’s tournament. Although, it seemed to be just as stressful as last week’s tournament. There were 40 teams from across Ontario taking part in the Ontario Provincial LEGO Robotics Finals on Saturday (Dec. 10).

After the second time-trial round, they were in first place with 296 points. After the third time-trial round, they were in third place. Therefore, they made it to the playoffs. The top 16 teams made it to the playoffs. Hence, there would be 4 playoff rounds.

The first playoff round was very stressful and close but they won. In their quarter-final round, everything went but we thought it was close. Richard had accidentally bumped an item on the table when he was picking up the robot but the judge thought ‘bump’ happened by the robot. If the robot bumped it then you would lose points but if the participant bumps it then you do not lose the points. For 5 minutes the boys were trying to explain it to the judge and then the judge reviewed it with over judges. Then a different judge said it does not matter because they have enough points to advanced to the next round, and told them to hurry and get to the next table.

Hence, that meant they were in the semi-finals. In their semi-final round, history repeated, and they had an awesome round, and so did the other team. Both teams set high-score point for the entire day, 300 vs 304. Luckily, they were the ones with 304 and so they went to the final playoff round.

In the final round, they had a good round, not awesome round. It was really close, we don’t know what the finals score were but they lost. Hence, they got second place in the tournament at the Ontario Provincial LEGO Robotics Finals - absolutely, totally impressive results.

There are 2 odd rules in the LEGO league. (1) A team cannot win 2 trophies and (2) the winner of the “Director’s Award” gets the invitation to Atlanta. Now the first rule is there to keep one team from sweeping up all of the awards.

The Director’s Award was given to a school that lost in the quarter-final round and as far as the robot design and presentation they had, I did not see any difference in theirs than the team who placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd. They were all of the same quality level.

Anyway, this is their first year in the LEGO league and to get 2nd place in the Niagara Regional Tournament and then get 2nd place in the Ontario Provincial LEGO Robotics Finals is just absolutely awesome.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix

And yes, a very, very, very proud dad.
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nathanw
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 3:23 am Post subject: Reply with quote

Knight

Joined: 14 Jul 2004
Posts: 550

very well done
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