Hunter has been wanting to learn more about LEGO robotics and programming so we got him on a team through the FLL (First LEGO League). It started up the first week of Sept. and goes through Dec. Every Friday night they meet as a team for two hours. The first couple of weeks they were learning about the competition, the theme for the year, the tasks that the robot must try to complete and getting their practice field all set up. There are ****** tasks on the field and the robot must try to complete as many as they can in ****** minutes. Each team receives points based on how many tasks were done, and also by the time in which they were accomplished. This the field and some of the tasks....
It is hard to tell from the picture but the robot has to do some pretty cool things including needing to be able to differentiate between colors, be able to turn, pull, grasp, lift, push different components. Most of the tasks require the robot to do more than just one step to retrieve the key. Then it must take every key it gets over and put it on a lever in order for it to be counted. The past few weeks the boys each got a kit and Mr. C told them to create their own robot that they thought would be best suited to perform all tasks. They would design it, program it and then each robot would take a turn on the field.
It was so neat to watch the teacher sit back and really let the boys go to town on their own. A couple of the boys started out with some really cool looking robots but they weren't stable enough or wouldn't move. I sat and watched as Hunter made his first attempt at a design.
He got about halfway through and then decided he didn't think that it was going to be effective for a couple of the tasks, so he took it all apart and decided to go with a more simple design. By this point the class was almost over but had made a new version of a robot and was working on arms and different motorized attachments that he could add on or take off. This one was definitely stable, size wise and was able to maneuver around the board easier.
They will each get two more weeks to finish building and have it programmed. Then the team will watch each boy's robot try out the course. They will then vote on a component of each boy's individual robot to bring together to create the team robot. Then as a team they will build their robot, start programming and fine tuning it to compete against the other teams and robots at the end of November. Hunter is having so much fun and learning a ton. All of this is just right up his alley. Can't wait to watch their team compete soon and see all of the robots that the different teams create.
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