Tuesday, May 18, 2021

The Robots Are Back

 

Here we are in 2021, finally seeing the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. Back in March of 2020, we were doing a deep dive into the computing capabilities of the dji Robomaster S1 robots, harnessing their FPV cameras and the mathematical concept of tangents to follow blue lines of painting tape on the floor in a race circuit. Our EV3 robots were being built and programmed for the upcoming Sumo competition. Then, the world hiccuped. School was closed, and all learning was shifted to online platforms. The robots went into hibernation for more than a year.

I'm happy to report that not only are the robots back, but in order to accommodate our return to 100% in-person instruction, Robotics has been turned into an Exploratory class for the remainder of the year, like Phys. Ed or Art. Additionally, we received another generous grant from The Davenport Trust to purchase a classroom set of iPads allowing us to seamlessly connect all of our robots via Bluetooth and program them in the Scratch language. This is a quantum leap from the antiquated EV3 programming language, allowing students to explore and apply sophisticated concepts of math and logic to their programs. The interface also gives a real time readout of sensor values which is helpful when setting threshold levels and observing the behavior of the robots. 


We don't yet know what Robotics instruction will look like next year, but I am confident that we will continue to use our deep inventory of 'bots and iPads to awaken kids' creativity and ingenuity and to inspire them to think big. It's very exciting to be back at it!



Tuesday, December 3, 2019

2019-2020 RSU 1 Robotics

RSU 1's Middle School Robotics Program has started up for the year with the biggest enrollment we have ever seen. Robotics is popular, which shouldn't come as a surprise. Building and programming small, autonomous machines requires a true interdisciplinary approach that engages kids as they imagine, build, problem-solve, test and innovate their creations. Just look at some of the photos posted here; the concentration on the faces of the kids is almost palpable.




We received another generous grant from the Davenport Trust this summer, allowing us to buy a set of new, more advanced robots called the Robomaster S1. They are made by DJI, the same company that has taken over the drone market with a wide range of high quality flying cameras. DJI incorporated a lot of its drone technology into the Robomaster, even though it doesn't fly. The Robomasters are unlike LEGOs in that they are built with nuts and bolts from pre-formed plastic pieces and are not modular. Once they are built, they will remain built. I'm offering second and third year robotics students the chance to build the Robomasters. They are programmed with a version of "Scratch," MIT's block-programming environment. A cool feature of the user interface is the ability to toggle the screen between Scratch and Python, to give users an idea of what their programs would look like in code. The Robomaster has advanced capabilities that will allow kids to experiment with sophisticated programming structures like PID Controllers (proportion, integral, derivative). The Robomaster also has mecanum wheels, consisting of long rollers embedded at 45ยบ all the way around each of the wheels. This allows the robot to steer and move omni-directionally without the need for the wheels themselves to change direction. It's pretty ingenious!


The first-year robotics students are building their first creation out of LEGOs, the "driving base." These two wheeled rovers are the perfect way to explore the foundations of programming. We will begin with giving the robots basic commands, and then move on to collecting data with sensors. Finally, the kids will devise ways for their robots to use the data collected by sensors to make decisions and inform their next moves. These tasks constitute the beginning stages of understanding Artificial Intelligence. 



We plan to host two competitions over the course of the year, so stay posted. 

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Robot Competition #1 2019


Roboteers carrying their kits to the venue.
With all the snow days and some changes in school personnel, LEGO Robotics got off to a slower than normal start this year. We finally held our first competition of the 2018-19 school year on Wednesday, March 13th. Three schools were represented: Woolwich Central School, Georgetown Central School, and Bath Middle School. The evening’s contests were “speedbot” and “table clearing.” The speedbots have to go straight for 18 feet, and the winner is the one that spans the distance in the shortest amount of time. Believe it or not, designing a robot that goes straight is the most challenging part of this event. Because the robots are timed using a laser-tripped device that is only three feet wide, it doesn’t matter how fast your robot goes if it veers off the course. Likewise, you might think that the table-clearing robot should be focused on knocking cans off the table, when in fact, the most important capability is to not fall off the table. 

I used a document camera from my classroom to create a jury-rigged Jumbo-Tron for everyone to see the action on the table.


We had around 100 people in the audience -- a big crowd for a Wednesday night!


BMS 6th grader, Waylon, starting up his table-clearing 'bot. It cleared five of the eight cans to tie for 3rd place. 

It's pretty scary for anyone to have a robot that they've built and programmed from scratch compete in front of a room full of watching eyes. Imagine what that experience is like for a middle school student! I am continually impressed by the poise and good sportsmanship displayed by every single student. Congratulations to the winners, and kudos to all the kids who applied their creativity, knowledge and hard work to their robots.



Parent volunteer Amos Wright coordinating the start on the speedbot course for a team from Georgetown.

Elias, a 7th grader from BMS proudly showing off his speedbot which placed third.




This speedbot from WCS was fast, but couldn't go straight.  The team only added the wheel extensions after the competition, which is too bad, because it would have won. 

Here are the results:

SPEEDBOT:
  1. NOAH FREEMERMAN, BMS: 4.036 SECONDS
  2. ANNA BARABEE AND YASMEEN DOUAR, GCS: 4.875 SECONDS
  3. ELIAS MARTIN AND LOCHLAN ALDRICH, BMS, 5.78 SECONDS
TABLE-CLEARING:
  1. JILLIAN ACKLEY AND DECLAN WRIGHT, BMS, ALL CANS IN 50.9 SECONDS
  2. JOSIAH KELLER, BMS, ALL CANS IN 54.89 SECONDS
  3. TWO-WAY TIE: SERA CAMPBELL, WCS & WAYLON RHORER AND MICHAEL RYAN, BMS: 5 CANS KNOCKED OFF
We are all looking forward to the Sumo competition coming up in May which is sure to be a really exciting (and often hilarious) event. We will announce the date of the competition in the coming weeks.

Friday, March 16, 2018

Line Followers


I'm not sure what it is about our robotics group this year, but I have never seen such a wide diversity of approaches and solutions to problems before. At BMS the teams are working on "line-follower" robots. The challenge is to create a robot and accompanying program that follows a serpentine, black line from start to finish. The fastest robot to complete the course is the winner. 
We introduced this challenge by discussing the basic algorithm for line following. This method uses Reflected Light Intensity (RLI) to follow one edge of the black line. Using the port-view utility on the EV3 brick, the sensor is held over the edge of the line, half on black, half on white. This value is the target RLI. When the reading is equal to the target, the robot goes straight. When the RLI increases, the robot turns back toward the black line, when the RLI decreases, the robot turns away from the black line. The program below, created by a 6th grader, is a simple and effective method for following the line. This student's robot was the first to finish the course.


It says that if the RLI is less than 30% (the "yes" case of the switch), then the robot will turn 40% to the left at 35% forward power. If this case is not true and the RLI is greater than 30%, the robot will turn 40% to the right at 35% power. This switch is placed in a loop, so the program will continue until it is stopped by the operator. The robot shimmies back and forth with this program, continually seeking the target RLI value and adjusting tens of times per second. 

For the first time ever, a 7th grade student decided to abandon the "move steering" block which controls two motors simultaneously with a built-in steering algorithm. Instead, he chose to create two programs in parallel, each controlling one motor. In order to do this, he used two light sensors, physically separated by the same distance as the width of the black line on the course. Each sensor is aimed just on the outer edges of the line. His program is below.

Instead of using a switch, this student is using the raw reading from each light sensor to control the power of a motor. The yellow lines are called data wires, and send numeric values from one block to another. If the sensor reads lower, then the corresponding motor moves more slowly. If the sensor reads higher, then the corresponding motor moves more quickly. He is changing the amplitude of the light sensor reading by -50% (multiplied by 0.5), so if the RLI for sensor #3 is 50%, motor B will run at 25% power. Effectively, this student has written his own steering algorithm controlled by the continually changing RLI readings of each sensor. This program is still being developed, and I suspect this student will play with the amplitude value in the red math blocks to find the ideal balance between speed and accuracy. 

The program below was created by an 8th grader, and it uses data wires, math blocks and variables. This robot also uses two light sensors that straddle the black line. Instead of using two parallel programs though, this robot uses raw RLI readings to inform the case of a switch. Then, those same raw values are used to define the values for variables which control the powers in a move-tank block controlling motors A and D. This program is working, but the robot moves quite slowly. This student may also add a math block to change the amplitude of the power output to the motors.  
It's obvious to me that these students are beginning to move beyond my level of sophistication! I plan to do some more reading and practice on my own to better understand the concepts they are exploring. It's exciting to watch their solutions unfold in ways we hadn't imagined.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Robotics Competition, 1/25/2018

On Thursday night, January 25th, we had a great turnout for the first Robotics competition of the 2017-18 school year. Twenty-five students competed in four competitions, entering robots that were the product of imagination, innovation, and plenty of hard work.

The four competitions were "Slope Climbing Robot," "Speed Robot," "Delivery Robot," and "Table Clearing Robot." 

For the first time ever, we had two robots complete the delivery course! Iris Hennin, an 8th grader at WCS completed the course on her first try (an amazing accomplishment) with a time of 20.16 seconds. Riley Dunn and Dalton Johnstone, both 7th graders at BMS had the winning time, completing the course in 17.46 seconds. It took them five tries to finally succeed!

Three robots competed in the speed competition. Josiah Keller and Chris Swinburne, 6th and 7th graders respectively at BMS, took third place with a time of 14.55 seconds to complete the 18 foot course. Second place was Tyler McCarren, an 8th grader from WCS with a time of 7.17 seconds. The winners were Sam Taft and Alex O'Camb, both 8th graders at BMS with an extraordinarily fast time of 2.86 seconds. 



Just one robot was entered in the Slope Climbing Competition. Tyler McCarren and Eban Keach, 8th graders at WCS, built a robot that managed to climb a 55˚ slope with ease.

Finally, in the Table Clearing competition, four robots successfully completed the challenge. Riley Gale, 6th grader at WCS in 31.65 seconds, Seamus Philbrick and Sonya Viselli, 6th graders at BMS in 29.5 seconds, Lucas Martin and Nathan Goodman, 8th and 7th graders respectively at BMS in 20.96 seconds, and Cody Stewart and Severen Denyer, both 7th graders at BMS in 19.86 seconds.

Lucas Martin made two robots for the table clearing event, one that met the criterion of fitting inside a cubic foot of space, and one that fit a square foot but extended up three vertical feet. Below is a video of the "legal" robot and the "illegal" robot. We allowed Lucas to run the "illegal" 'bot as a fun demonstration. It cleared the table in just 9.8 seconds!








Congratulations to every single contestant. The spirit of friendly competition, good sportsmanship and dogged determination in the context of math, science and engineering was wonderful to see. We will be hosting the annual SUMO challenge in early May, and we hope to see you there!



Thursday, January 25, 2018

Preparing to Compete!

All the pieces are in place for another great competition tonight. Students have been working tirelessly to perfect their robots, often making big differences in performance with small tweaks to both designs and programs. An 8th grader at Woolwich made sure her delivery robot was successful in its mission fifteen times in a row before packing it up for travel to Bath Middle School.


I transported all the WCS robots over to the BMS computer lab last night where they are being charged in anticipation of the competition. Mr. Seymour and I cordoned off the area with caution tape to dissuade the curious from handling the merchandise.


Tonight promises to be a lot of fun, and we hope you can make out to support the work of our robotics students. Look for a full report on the competition coming up soon!