July 18, 2014

  • BattleBots

    Carl is attending the Robinson Center for Young Scholars at UW. Introduction to Robots uses the LEGO NXT kit and a laptop for programming. They study the purpose and types of robots. Carl met more than one student that will also be attending Hamilton Middle School this fall.

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    The Robot Secret Laboratory, located on the campus of UW, is this incredible building of glass and steel. I ride by on the bicycle each day when I come to pick him up.

    One day he and another boy were sitting alone at one end of the room. They were back to back in some kind of time-out. I rode on to the pick-up point and waited for his class to conclude and walk up the hill. While waiting I talked to the vice principal and asked if my Carl ever got called into her office for behavior issues. She assured me not. All of her students were here as a privilege and very well behaved. When Carl arrived I learned that he and his lab partner were conducting a programming exercise where one person holds and describes a Lego structure and the other has to build it without seeing the original. Most partners used the main classroom area but Carl and his wanted a quieter space.
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    Here is Carl’s work station with his partner. They had a tub of lego parts, sensors, motors, and the programmable brain. Using the laptop they built the program before downloading it to the bot.

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    Battle Rules

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    Proud fathers of the Dodo Bot. When the battles were announced, all we knew was the bots name, not the builders. As soon as I heard the name, I knew that was Carl’s.

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    The Dodo Bot

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    The Dodo Brain. The students use this interface to build decision loops, timers, delays, and outputs. I looked around the room and all the programs appeared a little different.

    After starting their bots, the program must have a two second delay allowing creators to get out of the way. A light sensor detects the black tape on the border of the arena and the bot must remain inside. Some sensors were not programmed very well or the sensor was damaged in battle and the bot would exit the field.

    Here is an example of the Dodo not having the correct calibration and loosing because it left the field.

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    Other battles were not without attrition. As long as the bot continued to move, the game was on. A few teams utilized an ultrasonic sensor to detect and attack an opponent.