How the trash trek missions were completed by other teams.

Chungtai spent quite some time on the mission, but kept on failing. This led us to think our approach may not be right. So we searched on YouTube to see how other teams accomplished these missions. Here are some very interesting ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10U9NbF3rz4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqEvKem1-nQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-1eS_v8IJY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P1EREM1Yzc

M11 Purchasing Decisions

This is the toy factory mission which requires the robot to move the toy plane back to the Safety. It has two steps, first pull the trigger and release the toy plan from the toy factory, second pull the toy plan back to the Safety. This is a mission that we have accomplished in the tournament, but the result was not consistent. Questions we have met include:

. How will you locate the trigger? We could not pull the trigger successfully every time during the tournament. Can this problem be fixed?
. How will you pull the toy plan back? Our initial design had a problem, the hook went out of the safety, and we had to make change during the tournament. Do you plan to use the same structure, or not?
. How will you design the robot to include all these components?

M07 Clean up

In this part, the robot needs to collect the plastic bag from the beach, and put all three animals to a circle. This sounds easy but it is really challenging. At least we failed some time during the tournament on the easier part.

. How will you locate the plastic bag and turtle? It is quite far from the Safety.
. What mechanics do you use to pick up (or push?) the plastic bag?
. How do you guarantee that animals can be put in the right circle every time?
. Can you drop the chick to the smallest circle?

M05 Career and M07 Clean up

M05 Career only need the robot to send at least one worker to the Sorter area. This is very easy to finish if we treat it separately. However, there are two questions we need to answer:
. Can the robot send the worker to the same location every time? This means that you won't be able to just aim the direction manually every time.
. Do we need to consider where the worker should be sent? Will it block future missions?

M07 Clean up requires the robot to pull the plastic bag from the Sorter to the Safety. Questions you need to think include:
. What mechanics do you plan to use to pull out the plastic bag and drag it back to the Safety?
. Considering the space between the Sorter and the Toy Factory, how will you design the robot?
. How will guide the robot to the right location?

2016 ANIMAL ALLIES CHALLENGE

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Coming 12 noon EDT, 30 August 2016

Get ready.  Get set.  Roar!  Or you could bark, quack, or squeak, because the 2016 ANIMAL ALLIESSM season is all about our furry, feathered, and finned friends.  In the 2016 FIRST LEGO League Challenge, more than 28,000 teams of students age 9 to 16* will look into the eyes of our ANIMAL ALLIES.  What might become possible when we learn to help each other?

FIRST LEGO League challenges kids in over 80 countries to think like scientists and engineers.  During the ANIMAL ALLIES season, teams will choose and solve a real-world problem in the Project.  They will also build, test, and program an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS® technology to solve a set of missions in the Robot Game.  Throughout their experience, teams will operate under the FIRSTLEGO League signature set of Core Values, celebrating discovery, teamwork, and Gracious Professionalism®.

http://www.firstlegoleague.org/2016-animal-allies-challenge

M9 Salvage and M10 Demolition

These two missions had been completed during our tournament. However, the problem was that the result was not consistent. The robot could not pull the valuable every time, and it could not hit the bar to demolish the setup building every time. The challenge this time is the consistency. Also, we plan to pull back all demolished parts, so new structure needs be added to accomplish this task. 

M06 Scrap Cars Questions

In this mission, the robot needs to carry the engine/windshield unit from the Safety and install it in the unfolded car in the right directions. Things you need to consider include:

. How do you want to carry the engine/windshield unit?
. How do you plan to install the engine/windshield unit in the car?
. How will you locate the robot to the right place? Which route will you take? What sensors will you use to guide the robot?

Mission assignments

Hello, all,

We start working on missions now. As we discussed after we finished the tournament, we plan to finish 500 points missions by the end of summer (consistently).

Below is the Trash Trek mission map. Please use it to design your own mission. Our current assignments are:
. Aiden (M06 Scrap Cars, 65 points): we need to install the engine/windshield in the unfolded car.
. Chungtai (M09 Salvage, 60 points): pull the valuable to the safety completely.
                 (M10 Demolition, 85 points): make sure no building block is standing in Setup position,  and pull back all building blocks to the safety
. Matthew (M05 Career, 60 points): move at least one person to the Sorter Area
                 (M07 Cleanup, 30 points): move the plastic bag from the Sorter to the Safety
. Samuel (M07 Cleanup, 90 points - 125 points): move the plastic bag from the beach to the Safety. Put three animals in any circle.
. William (M11 Purchasing Decisions, 40 points): move the toy plane back to the Safety

If we can finish all these missions, plus missions we had tried before, M03 Transport and M08 Composting, we will definitely pass the 500 points goal.

To finish these missions, you need to think some general design questions:
. How many sensors do you plan to use? What are they? Where should they be installed?
. How many motors except those two driving wheels do you need to use? How will these motors drive your mechanics? Where should these motors be installed? How should they connect to your mechanics?
. How will your robot start from the Safety? (directions, etc.)
. How will the robot base look like? What is the size of the robot base?

I will also post specified questions for each of you to think.

Best,

Feng Tian