Vertical Limit (Upper Secondary) too tough ?

Now that FLL is over, it's time to start working on robot for NRC 2010 that is going to start in another 2 months time.

One of the most common complaints i heard from teachers and students were regarding the difficulty of Vertical Limit - the upper secondary event for regular category. Since no sample solutions are being provided this year, most schools (at least the ones i know) must be scratching their heads, or, should i say, pulling their hair from their scalp just to come up with a workable solution.

To add more salt to the injury, the recent update on the rules requires the robot to move from pole A to pole B AUTONOMOUSLY !!! surprise, surprise (O.O) Muahahaahaha....

It was not the organizer who wanted to play a prank on all the schools who participated in NRC 2010 but because the WRO committee keeps changing the rules as NRC 2010's events are based on WRO. (being an ex-Sasbadi trainer, i can attest to this )

This got me thinking a little - how on earth do you make a robot that can climb a pole 25mm in width, collect a ping pong ball, come down, move on to the next pole ALL BY ITSELF, and repeat the same thing again while using only 1 NXT controller, 3 motors, & 4 sensors (max) ?

I have been sketching up a robot using simple shapes & once i am done i will post up the sketches to share with you guys, so stay tuned :)

p.s. i'm not good in drawing :P

Videos of Team "The Light Warriors" at FFL 2010

Congratulations to Team "The Light Warriors" from REAL International School, Hulu Langat who won Best Overall Robot Design award at the recent FIRST Lego League (FLL). The team comprised (in alphabetical order of surname):

1. Thavish Annal
   
2. Sabrina Chia Chee Teng
3. Massimiliano Daldoss
4. Koh Phey Faye
5. Melissa Lim May Lyn
6. Shue Yuann Shin
7. Kabilan Subramaniam
8. Eddy Tan Jia Cheng
9. Wayne Tan
10. Jonathan Yap

The team is also accompanied by:

1. Daniel Tsen (Team Manager)
2. Erol Hujdur (Coach)
3. Ong Poh Lai (Coach)
4. Eric Tan (Coach)
5. Ong Poh Seng (Coach)

Here are the videos that depict performance of Team "The Light Warriors" during the two-day event at National Science Centre, Kuala Lumpur.

Project Presentation

Technical Presentation (Part 1)

Technical Presentation (Part 2)

Mission (Round 1)

Mission (Round 2)

Mission (Round 3)

Award Presentation

Keep up the good work!

FLL 2010 - Smart Move - Best Overall Robot Design Award - Real International (Seri Suria)

First I would like to congratulate all the kids from Real International (Seri Suria) for a job well done in bringing home a Prize (Best Overall Robot Design Award) from the FLL 2010 Smart Move competition held on the 17 & 18 March 2010.

Preparations were intense, and all of the kids only really had 4 full days to complete the robot, practise the missions and organise the presentation.

I would also like to thank Daniel, Erol, Poh Lai and Poh Seng for putting in all their time and effort into preparing the kids. All would not be possible if everybody did not play their own role.

I would say, a Prize is always nice, but I guess we would have work even harder for the FLL 2011, as I noticed the Team to beat would be SJKC Jalan Davidson, of which their robots went flawlessly, perfect in a sense. Their robot was well taught with great innovation and ideas.

Attending the FLL for the first time was a different experience. I guess it was the different methods they used to judge needs sometime to get used to. Our presentation was not as well done as it should. We didnt have props and costumes like the other teams.

I guess overall, for a first year contender in any Robotics competition, we did great. We just have to buck up, as the other schools out there are years ahead, in terms of LEGO Robotics.

So, no rest for the wicked, since the NRC 2010 question is already out... I guess training would have to start.... again.....

More photos of FLL 2010 at Jason's Blog (Sasbadi Staff)

NRC 2010

The events for NRC 2010 is as follows

Regular Category

1. Primary School - Adventure Race

2. Lower Secondary - Treasure Hunt

3. Upper Secondary - Vertical Limit

Open Category

Theme: Robot Promote Tourism

Full details on rules available here.

Registration form available here. Closing date is 30 April 2010.

Good Luck to all.

**Details are obtain from Jason's blog (Sasbadi Staff)