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)

FLL 2009/2010

First Lego League holds a competition yearly, with the same question being used for the whole world. What I love about the FLL is that, everyone competes using the same questions, same play field, as well as same lego sets. Where all remains the same, only their creativity/ingenuity of each team to solve the problem will make them the winning team!

You can view the full FLL rules for FLL Smart Move 2009/2010 here.

For a quick summary of what you will expect from the FLL Smart Move 2009/2010, you can view the video below

I suck at writing blog.
But still, here's my point of view on the robots.

Small and agile with risks are what our competitors did during the K. Terengganu NRC.
They used the aim and shoot method.
This method basically is to make the robot move straight and grab ( other methods also apply) the object and put it to the destination.
They risk:

1. The position of the robot at start point must be EXACTLY where they have programmed.
2. Battery voltage must be EXACTLY the same as what they have programmed using.
   
3. Luck. No luck = GG
4. They must programmed it correctly in a sense that the programming must be accurate by the millimeter. And that's just too back-breaking for us?
5. Even the condition of the mat will AFFECT the performance AKA determine their fate.
   

THE SLIGHTEST MISCALCULATION, MISTAKES, EVEN BY A MM, WILL RESULT IN FAILURE.




But if, and if, they are:

1. Lucky
2. Able to program well
3. Makes no mistake.

They get lots of points as their robot is fast.


Next, is what we did.

Use Light Sensors to move with the black lines on the mat.

This method is:

1. More accurate.
2. May auto-recover.
3. Minimises human-error as the robot will move itself without requiring us to aim the robot.
4. It's now a fully-automated robot. No a car that picks up objects blindly.
   

Nothing is perfect. Same goes with this method.

It's :

1. SLOWER if compared with aim and shoot method. But if it's programmed well it may go faster ? ( unconfirmed, no chance for us to see others use this method )

Method of getting object.

This is gives us a headache till the very end of the competition.
We thought of all kinds of methods. Some fail. Some shines.
At last, we decided to go with the box method.
The robot's arm is a square that extends out of the robot.

The arm

We got frustrated thinking of other methods that we go ahead with a very straight forward box that just swoops in the object.

Well, this method brings a lot of problem.
Especially with the rubber object.
Rubber + mat = Friction and loads of it.

With the robot pulling the object, it's like telling it a mammoth task for the robot. It squeaks, jerks and even jumped over the object with the object still stationary.


There's also the grab method, grab-n-lift method, scoop method and so on.




It's late now. gtg. So, anything missing? Wrong? Bullshits? Please dump it in the comments.
And hopefully, I'll make up to it in my next post.




P.S. This is my first time writing and posting a blog post.

Point of View: Robot Massacre

Hello world ! This is my first post. Thanks to Eric for the invitation.
To make sure our robot will keep moving forward, I came up with these few questions and opinions that I believe is essential for our future robot construction.

First of all, the size of the robot. Our previous robot moves slow and steady although a bit bulky.
The mass of our previous robot is a pro and also a con. The weight is important to decide because it will eventually affect our turning, movements, power consumptions and of course the type/number of wheels. How can we give a balance "diet" for our future robot from being fat and slow? We can build it small and compact, mild and light or just with simple mechanisms.

I believe the robot should be small, simple and not-too-light.
Small, it is easier to build and does not interfere with the tracks or turnings.
Simple, just in case anything screws up, rebuilding it would be easier.
Not too light, a little bit of weight is recommended to prevent the robot from slipping, jerking and possibly gets off track.

Another thing to take note of is the sensors. It is always light sensors. Our previous robot is causing a lot of inaccuracy and failures on turning.
The obvious reason is the distance between the sensors and the wheels. The sensors shouldn't be too far from the wheels nor too close.
Our future robot should have a close enough distance from the wheels. So when the robot stops, the wheels are in the exact location as we want.

Arm mechanism. So called the pain in the ass.
Is there an arm design that could pick up almost every shape and sizes ?

Is grab-n-lift a good option ?
Do we really need an arm (guess so) ?

The following is the battery. Which battery should we use on competition day, rechargeable or new AA batteries? It would be best if we get some sponsorship from the school for batteries. Program using rechargeable then optimize it to a higher voltage, sounds good ? I believe the old design is a power hogging machine, therefore the new design must be small. It failed on the design and programming. Better design is a must. Until now, I'm still wondering how did we won third prize in the competition with this rotund golem.

Next, the wheels. Should we consider more than 2 wheels ? Do we need small wheels or big wheels? I think we are better off with big wheels (previous wheels).
The small wheels isn't giving much "grip" from what i see, and it may slip if we use a faster speed, it's just too light. The wheels are depending on the size of our robot. It's not like we put tiny wheels on a giant machine, that would be LOL !
Besides that, if possible, we're going for max power and max velocity. We never know what would happen next.

My views may be a little bit of obscure and ridiculous, I think you get the idea. Well, it's just my point of view.

Tell us what do you think about a winning robot.

Cheers.
-CH-

3D modelling using Solidworks

I have been relearning Solidworks (a 3D CAD software widely used by engineers & designers) for a while and decided to do some simple modelling on my own after going through some of the tutorials. So i just picked the Technic studless straight beams as my subject due to its simplicity & my skill level :p

In engineering, just like in real life, there are many ways to solve a given problem and the rule of thumb is always to solve it using the simplest method. I completed the first 3M studless straight beam using 7 steps (or 7 features),

But i thought i used too many steps to complete the model, so i made another attempt to remodel the beam using different methods and this time around it only uses 3 steps to complete the model.

Satisfied, i continued to model the rest of the straight beams of varying lengths including 5m, 7m, 9m, 11m, 13m, and 15m & made a screen shot of all the different beams lined up together,



Overall, i had a fun experience using Solidworks to model the Technic beams. I understand there are a lot of LEGO CAD softwares out there that would satisfy most Mindstorms & Technic fans, but for the few who find them too limiting in features, eg designing your own custom parts, performing some stress analysis, or some motion analysis, then you should give Solidworks a try ! (provided money is not an issue for you :p)

Quick engage/disengage mechanism for gear trains

Due to the challenging design of this year's Robot Energizing objects, many teams have come up with pretty interesting designs to carry the resources (i.e coal, bio-fuel, and esp. solar). One of the biggest challenge the teams face is to design some mechanism which can grab and lift the object by using only 1 motor as the other 2 have been used up for navigation.

So, some of the more successful teams have employed the grab & lift mechanism similar to the one shown below,

This is a brilliant solution for grabbing & lifting the Solar rescource off the ground, but there's a slight drawback to this design when the gear reduction ratio is too big - you need to turn the motor many rotations to reset it to the original position everytime the robot misses. So one the solution the teams come up with is to attach another knob/wheel along the driving axle for manual reset. However, this still takes up an awful amount of time, especially if your robot miss more than once :S

Recently i came across a very interesting mechanism that can engage/disengage a gear train with relative ease and i thought it would be an useful add-on to the grab & lift mechanism for quick engage/disengage in the event the robot misses the object.

I have uploaded the videos showing how the quick engage/disengage mechanism work along with the grab & lift mechanism without the quick engage/disengage mechanism for comparison.

Grab & lift with quick engage/disengage

Grab & lift without quick engage/disengage

This mechanism can even be applied to grabbers which uses wormscrews, which can save even more time on resetting the grabber.

Almost Famous - NRC 2009 Newspaper Article

I have been in Kuala Terengganu for less than 6 months, and I am already making a scene. Creating too much publicity is NOT a good thing :)

We had a little tiny article printed on the Sin Chiew 18 July 2009 about our recent win in the NRC 2009.

Since I cant read chinese, I can't give you a summary on what it says, but most probably only good things :)

Those who didn't see the article in their Sin Chiew is because it is printed in their equivalent of Metro section (The Star), where it only talks about local events in Kelantan, KT and Kuantan (East Coast).

Lego Technics Quad Bike 8262

Isn't the Quad Bike just sexy? I must admit, most of the 2009 Lego Technic models are just awesome. In fact, I am eyeing the Technic Go Kart too! Not forgetting all the Star War Series, that I have already spent too much collecting.

I must admit, but this is the second Technic set that I have built. It is NOT that I don't own any other Technic sets, but all of is still Brand New in Box. I have the Lego Bulldozer 8275, but just haven't gone around to building it. I am sure it is an awesome set, with all the PF Motors!!

When I first opened the box to the Quad Bike, I realised that there is so little pieces in there. With all the packets on the table, I was wondering whether have they left any parts out? Most of the weight of the items are in the rubber wheels :p

After pouring all the parts out on the table, I realised that it is filled with many many small parts. After a quick flip through of the intruction booklet, I realised that there is alot of little details (and little parts) used to make the quad bike.

I spent closed to 2 hours building the Quad Bike. I really like the front suspension that the Quad Bike have. The design is great, and I hope to incorporate it in my future NXT designs. The only problem is that, the pieces and absorber piece is unique to this set, and NOT included in any standard NXT Set :(

It has an alternate building instruction to build a Buggy. I will be building it soon, and will definately post the pictures of that soon.

NRC 2009 - 3rd Place Kuala Terengganu State

Here is a photo of the kids from SMK Chung Hwa Wei Sin with the 3rd Price win at the NRC 2009 Kuala Terengganu State level.

Congratulations to them on work well done of getting 3rd place. It is their first year with the NXT and coaching them from ground up is no easy task, not to mentioned with their busy schedules, they only had about a month to come up with their robot design and program for it.

Going against students who have got NXT experience, not to mentioned that they had already completed a similar NRC 2008 question is no easy task. Luckily with the long hours put in, they manage to obtain 3rd Place.

The kids are (from left to right)

• Cedric
  
• Koong (Chief Programmer)
  
• Chen Hui (Chief Builder)
• Eric Tan (Coach)

I expect nothing less from them next year, only First place would be acceptable!

I will be posting more on my NRC experience in the future post, as well as the design concept of our NRC 2009 robot, as well as mistakes that we had made.

Lego City Coat Rack

Look what we have here. It is a very similar concept to what was posted earlier. Check photo below, and link to posts.

Automatic Bucket Filler

It's been a while since my last NXT project, and since i got a week off for CNY so why not do some home improvement to make the home a better place to live in, right ?

In the house i live in, "someone" just have a strange habit where they like to leave the tap dripping all the time and i can never understand the logic or the rationale behind it. So i decided to probe deeper and find out the answer - "Oh, i just leave it dripping all the time so it will fill up the bucket automatically" was the reply i got :S

The problem was the bucket overflows all the time that is a tremendous waste of H2O...Hence, i came up with the Automatic Bucket Filler.

This system consists of one motor and one touch sensor. When the water level is low, the ball drops to a lower level and the touch sensor is released, signalling the NXT to rotate the motor to turn on the tap; when the water level is high, the ball raises due to buoyancy and presses the touch sensor, signalling the NXT to turn off the tap.

The motor turns the tap.

The ball rises and lowers depending on the level of the water, and when the level is high enough the ball will press on the touch sensor to signal the NXT to turn off the tap.

Ok, i know you can't wait to ask me how much can i save with this system and what's the ROI ? After doing some simple calculations,

Annual savings on water bill : RM 5

Cost of Mindstorms NXT      : RM 1400

Return on investment (ROI): RM 1400/RM 5 = 280 years !

Hey, just 280 years only mah, not bad wat... after 280 years can start saving RM 5 every year oredi, so chun !

Lego USB Drive - Thinnest Ever!

I am sorry if this is a little off topic. I made a few over the weekend. I reckon you can't get smaller than this for a USB Flash drive. If you guys would like one, drop me a message. The best thing is that, it is Vista ReadyBoost compatible!




The LEGO USB Drive featured is almost completed. I have not mounted a small ring that would allow the LEGO USB Drive to be mounted either on a Keychain or a Lanyard (perfect for showing off!)

Currently I have 6 colours available

I would like to apologise for my sub-standard photos. Photos would be re-taken with better lighting condition and using a tripod to ensure that the photos are sharp as it can be!

You can check out more details here.

Simple Skid-Steer 4WD with Power Functions

Over the weekend i just wanted to build something out of the new power functions elements from the 8275 Bulldozer - hence i came up with this simple remote-controlled model with no programming but pure fun.

This is a simple skid-steer 4WD using power functions elements including 2 XL motors, 1 battery box, 1 receiver and it can be built in under 5 minutes.

Each side of the wheels is controlled by 1 XL motor and steering is accomplished by turning both motors in opposite directions, just like the way you drive a tank...

The car tends to jerk a lot while turning due to the nature of skid-steer architecture but i had a lot of fun with it, especially with the reaction i get from my sister's dog when i drive this thing around right in front of her ^_^

NXC Tutorial by Danny Benedettelli

If you have downloaded the NXT Tutorial by, please download it here.

Don't worry about the NXC guide. You'll only need the Guide if you are doing more advance programmes. Until then, just use the NXT Tutorial and follow it step by step.

I have gone through the tutorial and find it pretty complete. It goes through most of the basic features that are available in the NXT-G language.

I will start to write some more advance program and post them back here.

I will assume that you have already complete the NXC Tutorial and fully understand the basic NXC features as well as the C programming language.

Alternative Software for your NXT Mindstorms - NBC/NXC

Today I will be writting a short article on how to install and use alternative software. The first one I will be looking at is the NBC/NQC/NXC. You can read more about these 3 alternative software here.

The beauty about this about the language is that, you could use the standard firmware, without upgrading your NXT Firmware. Why it is great is that you could use the more advance, while having the option to use back the NXT-G software, if you wish to do a quick test or demo without flashing your firmware back to the original one.

NBC (Nxt Byte Code) is actually a very low level coding. It is about an equivalent to assembly language. Basically you can't get lower than this!

NXC is (Not eXactly C) is a high-level C language. It is written above the NBC language.

I used NBC when it was first released and upgraded to NXC when it was introduced.

You'll need to download 2 software to get this running.

• Bricxcc -GUI Interface for the NBC Compiler
  
• NBC - NBC Compiler
  

Start by installing the Bricxcc (Bricx Command Centre) GUI interface. It is pretty straight forward.

Next please extract the NBC Compiler. Please remember the directory where the files have been extracted to.

You'll need to attach the NBC compiler so that you can access it from within the Bricxcc.Under the Edit menu, please seleect the Preference option.

Then select the little box with the "..." and include the path where you had extracted your NXC file.

Once you have done it, please compile the file "struct.nxc" which was included in the NBC compiler.

If you have done everything as I have explained, you should be able to compile the programme and run it.

Download the NXC Guide or NXC tutorial from this link.

I will have some tutorial on how to programme in NXC in my future post.  

Poor Man's Key Hanger

Leaving a bunch of keys all scattered around the table bothers me and I just decided to look for some key hangers to put the poor fellas where they belong. The problem was i always forget to buy them until i got fed up so I just put together a few pieces of LEGO Technic plus some good quality double-sided tape to create my own version of key hanger, and Viola !

Another advantage for using LEGO to make key hangers was saving money on buying new ones :P

Can you think of something else to do with your LEGO ? ( preferably something useful of course. )

8275 Bulldozer

I got this Bulldozer for a very reasonable price from ebay about two weeks ago and this monster took me around 10 hours in total to put together :S But it was definitely worth the effort as i enjoyed every minute of it :)

The first thing you will notice when you open up the box is the huge number of bags !! ( not to mention the 3 instruction booklets )

One of the main attraction of this model is the amount of Power Functions elements in the set. This set alone gives you :

• 1 remote control
• 1 battery box
• 2 receivers
• 2 XL motors
• 2 M motors

It took me about 4 hours to finish the first book and this is how it looks like,

The design and construction technique used in this model is very efficient, compact, and solid. The first book is all about building the chassis and the mechanism for the treads. 

The second book completes the rest of the functional mechanisms with all the electronics installed and it gives the bulldozer its exterior,

The final book adds the front blade and the ripper on the back to make the bulldozer complete.

In the pictures it may not look very big and let me assure this baby is HUGE ! Just to give you an idea of how big it is, i've put the bulldozer on top of my Mindstorms NXT box and took a picture.

The length of the bulldozer even exceeds the size of the box ! 

Overall, i was very satisfied and impressed with the bulldozer and i've already started thinking of using its treads for my next Mindstorms project....hehehe...

Kean's First Post

Hi guys, my name is Kean and im new to this blog, thanks to Eric's invitation :)

My background is in mechatronics engineering and currently working as a education trainer.

Since this is my first post i thought i'd post something interesting, something you wouldn't normally do with your NXT set in school. Allow me to present to you ( drums beating in the background.................) :

The NXT Bolter (Submachine gun)

I created this back in March. Inspired by Laurens Valk's 'Support Gunner' and other nxt guns, i decided to build a variation of my own. I wanted to build a gun which looks and feels like a real gun and hence - NXT Bolter.

It looks like a smg with an inverted magazine.I used 1 motor for loading the 'bullet' into the chamber, and another 2 motors for firing the 'bullet'. The firing is controlled by a touch sensor when the gunner pulls the trigger.

There are 2 modes to this gun: semi-auto and full-auto and the gunner selects the mode through the left and right button.The magazine can hold a maximum of 16 1x3 beams and the gun can be reloaded from the top of the magazine.

Picture

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.

NXTintro Workshop with Nicholas and Victor

It was another successful day for me. Two students attended my NXTintro Workshop on the 3 June 2008. Two brothers in fact. Their age was about 12 and 15 years old with zero experience with Lego or NXT mindstorms.

The day started with introduction to Lego Mindstorms. At first, they didn't know what to expect of our workshop. So I took out a previous Bot that I had built, and with my Bluetooth phone, I controlled it. Moved it around the table. They were like... WOW.... OOO....

After that demo, the kids seems more excited than me, and couldn't wait to get started with the Workshop.

We went through some basics before I allowed them to build a Robot each. Since it was their first day, instructions were given to them. Buidling with intructions is nothing difficult to do. Within 45 mins, their basic robot for the day was built. Next came the harder part of the Workshop. The NXT-G programming portion. With little or no experience in programming, teaching them would not be a simple task.

I gave them some very simple program to do. Mostly 2-3 blocks of programming. This is to get them used to the programming environment. After a few simple task, I gave them more complicated task to complete.

Before you know it, these kids were familiar and knew what they were doing. We continued the day by adding more components to the basic Bot as well as learn more advance programming methods.

Before the end of the day, I allowed both the brothers to have a little "competition". I gave them a task and allowed them ample to time to modify their bots as well as program it.

Overall, the class was a success with both the kids learning the about Robotics as well as Programming. The younger brother even requested that his Dad buy him a NXT set for his coming Birthday :p