November 3, 2009 - S.N.O.T. Building

There was a lot of curiosity and excitement about the building challenge for this meeting: S.N.O.T. building!! S.N.O.T. stands for "Studs Not On Top." Some Builders had some difficulty getting started--it's hard to break old habits! A few of them tried to stay in the gray by building everything upside-down (technically the studs were NOT on top...until I turned the project upside-down). Once they got rolling, we had a lot of great examples of S.N.O.T. building.

October 20, 2009

Building the Science and Engineering dog

• Part of the Building group began work on the Lego Science and Engineering dog, which will wag its tail and move its mouth when completed.

Building chairs

• Some of the Builders decided to take the challenge of designing chairs for a small stuffed animal. The chairs had to pass the drop test and fit the animal the Builder chose.

That's a lot of animals!

Finalizing the robot

• The Robot Building group continued work on their robot and tested various programs to get the robot to accomplish their objective. When they were done, they demonstrated their invention: The Candy-Flinging Robot!

October 6, 2009

Builders split into small groups and worked on models from the Lego Science and Engineering kit, with a focus on gears and stable structures.


The Robot Building group (Carson, Mason, Evan A., and Koy), revised plans for their robot, built a base for the motor and NXT brick, and devised a simple program to test the function of their design. After drafting a design and building a prototype, we realized that the objective was too complex to be built in the time frame we had available. Although they were disappointed that they had to start over, they quickly came up with a revised plan and built a base for the motor.

Sept 22, 2009

At this meeting, we split into groups based on age and experience. Three of the groups worked in teams to build models from the Lego Science and Engineering kits. These Builders worked on solid construction, choosing the right pieces, and correcting mistakes that may have occurred. The 4^th group started designing a robot using the Lego NXT kit. They will be constructing and programming a candy-delivering robot for Halloween. Before the end of the meeting, each group had a chance to demonstrate and talk about their model. You can see a video of all the groups:

• Towards the end, you might hear me repeatedly calling Carson "Carter," while he and Carter correct me. I apologize to Carson! I seem to have this problem with his name--that I can look right at him, knowing what his name is, and the wrong one comes out of my mouth. He always politely corrects me.

First Meeting

Wow! 21 Builders attended our first meeting of the year! It was a great turnout and very exciting for me to see all of the new faces.

We began with a Lego Scavenger hunt, to become familiar with the different pieces. Many of the new Builders hadn't used Technic pieces before and returning Builders didn't know standard names for everything, so it was a challenge for most of them. Most of them worked together to find the items on the list. For the ones that got really stuck, I had flashcards that they could look at.

Resources:

• Scavenger Hunt List
• Flash Cards
  

Next, the Builders built their names out of Legos:

Look at all of the creative ways of building letters and using pieces! I'm going to print the pictures I took of all the names. We'll use them for name tags and photo tags for models later on.

You can't stop Builders from building, especially when the table in front of them is full of Legos. Here are some of the creations they came up with during our meeting:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Evan and Gordon finished early and shot some video of the other builders. Here's a scan around the room of everyone building:


Head to Flickr to see what some of the group did with their creations.

And finally, a special THANK YOU to Evan B., who donated the money he received as an award this summer to the group!

The next meeting is on Sept. 22. We'll split into groups and start working on models.

Meeting Schedule for 2009-10

Calling all Builders!

It's the start of a great new year! Our first meeting will be on Tues, Sept 8 at 6 pm in the New Franklin school Media Center/Library. We'll talk about the new club and free build while parents fill out paperwork.

Following meetings will be on:

• Sept 22
• Oct 6
• Oct 20

Builders must be in Kindergarten through 5th grade and at least 6 years old by Dec, 2009.

Robotics Summer Camp

This summer, we had two 1-week camps to build and program NXTs. Thanks to the kids who attended (and their parents!), we were able to purchase the NXT kit for next year's club. The best part was working with the NXT, especially when the kids came up with their own programs.

Tribot

We began by talking about the difference between machines and robots and why a program is so important. We started with Tribot to learn the basics of programming and the functions of the sensors. After several days of building and modifying, the first group built Spike (the robotic scorpion). The second group built RoboArm.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

(If you can't see the pictures, you can look at them and some additional videos on Flickr)

Carson built a program for Spike that let the robot walk around the table:



As a special treat, Tyler brought his fuel cell model car:

Links of Interest

All of the following links will navigate you away from this blog.

Lego

• LEGO
• Building Instructions Download PDFs of models. Search by series, name, or model number.
• Brickipedia A Lego wiki (online encyclopedia)
• The Brothers Brick
  

Mindstorm NXT

• The NXT Step Blog by multiple, multinational contributors.
• Videos
• NXT Sequencer by Damien Kee. A great example of a fun way to use the NXT (and I like the tune).
• NXT Programs Fun programs for one NXT kit
  

Robotics Challenges

• Moonbots, Summer 2010
  

Other Programming

• Scratch
  

More Fun Stuff

• Lego
• BIONICLEsector01 A Bionicle wiki


• Bricklink A "unofficial marketplace." This is a link to their reference page/catalog. You can find exhaustive information for sets and components, including part numbers and images.
• Fractals


• Nova Hunting the Hidden Dimension

Real Life

• Programming
• How Hard is it to Learn Programming? on Ask-Leo.com
  
• Robots
• Robots on the road to safer convoys on Tech Republic.com
• Rescue Mission Robots from MU
• NASA's 6-legged Robot on Computerworld.com
• Building
• Make Magazine
• 
  

The New Franklin Lego League (2008-09)

Pictures from last year's group: