Inventors Club Winter 2014 - Week 1

And the winter session of Inventors Club is off to a running start!  This session is all about chain reactions, plus more Arduino practice for the older group.

Last Saturday we started work on Rube Goldberg balloon popping devices in the morning group.  Lots of different ideas being tried out, and this weekend we get to see what the final results will look like.  Some of our big nails seem to be popular choices for making the big kaboom, but will they be able to puncture the balloons, or will some have to be switched out for something sharper?  You might say we're waiting on pins and needles here.

In the afternoon we started work on an experimental Arduino servo chain reaction.  Can we create our own homemade switches so that our servos can activate each other one after another?  Can we get them to run in a looping circle?  This weekend we'll finish the switches, add some programming, and find out!  The homemade switches are looking awfully impressive and creative.  It's going to be fun to see them in action.

Of course, after all this group work, the students will spend the rest of the 6 week program working on making their own project idea.  With the help of our equipment, materials, and mentors they'll be bringing their ideas to life.  We're all looking forward to seeing what amazing new creations will come out of the workshop this time around.

Lego Robotics - Winter 2014

We are now over half way through this session of LEGO Robotics. Both the morning and afternoon classes are make impressive progress. In our remaining two weeks each group is working on specific challenges.

Our Introduction to LEGO Robotics class in the morning works in teams, two students for each robot.

 Each team has built their robot, practiced basic programming, and have experienced using the computer to try more advanced programming techniques and concepts. The first week we did thought provoking investigation to see how wheel size affected our robots motion. This week we started with some circuit exploration, figuring out how basic circuits work and how to control them with a switch. Now we are building and program robots for specific student designed challenges. Some groups are working on making their robot interact with a custom made pressure pad. Other groups are preparing their robots for battle. Join us at the Big Show on Saturday March 1st to see these robots in action.

In the afternoon our Robot Challenges students have also been busy. In this group each student has their own robot to work with so they can really customize their robot and tinker with its design and programming.

The first week was spent constructing the a basic robot. The second week was spent investigate sensors and basic programming. In the third we constructed a basic maze for our robots and then programmed the robots to successfully travel through the maze.

In our fourth week the big challenge was introduced. The challenge for the afternoon group involves building a snow plowing robot. For our scenario the snow will be represented by balls of different sizes and shapes. So far we have been experimenting with different plow designs and trying to utilize the skills we practiced to get our robots through the maze to help us through the new course. We have run into some challenges as well such as trying to find the right balance of making a plow that is big enough to capture most of the "snow" but not so big that is catches on the curb and knocks the robot off course. Challenges we will going to work on and refine over the next two weeks.