And the Winner is .... NRC 2008 Results

Congratulations to Victoria Institute for winning 1st and 2nd place...


But the real winner is the boys from SMK Taman Connaught, who came in third with 233 points. There were a dispute with the Head Judge as instructions given to them was mixed from 2 different judges.

Anyway, we all know that they are the TRUE winners, easily obtaining 265 points if there wasn't any issues with the judges.

Their team consist of

• Daniel Boey
• Jonathan Lee
• Calvin Boey

I would like to say that, extra credit have to be given to Daniel who did most of the building and programming as well as extensive testing.

There would more photograph and stories as well as LDD file for their winning robot.

We'll be going out for dinner to celebrate their win. Yes, these are the kids that I was teaching for the past 2 months.

Once again, Congratulation to Daniel, John and Calvin for their great job done!

You can read more about his robot as well as LDD and pictures here.
His strategy for the day was also explained here in the 2nd post.

Light Sensor Module for NRC 2008

I have decided to build a 3 Light Sensor module to be used in my attempt to conquer the Lower and Upper Secondary category.

Why 3 light sensor? Well, I hope that it would be more accurate than the 2 light sensor as provided by the sample from Sasbadi. In my early attempts to make the vehicle, it is pretty accurate, but still a little slow.

Would need to optimized the program before trying to make it go faster. Speed and accuracy is required if you want to win!! :)

NRC 2008 - Ideas and Thoughts

I have been studying the NRC lower and upper secondary question. I must admit, it won't be an easy competition this year. There are so many things that we could consider. The list is endless, and if you need to test any and every combination, it would be a huge task.

Anyway, I will list down the stuff that we need to consider

Vehicle Design

• Build using studless design, or traditional lego bricks with studs?
• Using the NXT or RCX motor?
• Have 1 or 2 motor as the driving force?
• Do you use gearing to make the vehicle go faster?
• Do you use tracks, 2 or 4 wheels?

Mechanical Arm

• Using NXT or RCX motor?
• When you grab the object is it from top down, or from the sides?

Software

• Design using the Lego NXT-G software or Robolab 2.9?
  

Light Sensor Design

• Do you use RCX or NXT light sensors?
• Do you use 1,2,3 or 4 light sensors?

Overall strategy

• Do we hard code the software to run without considering the tracks (black lines)?
• Do we use a line following algorithm to move through the playing field?

So many different consideration. So many options. I guess, there is no 1 right answer. One may build a better robot, but without a good software design, it may not be able to complete the task and vice versa. To truly win the competition, the team must have a great design, in both software and hardware as well as speed and reliability.