World Competition Week 10

Hi everybody! So, this is a blog post about 3 days rather than just one, because we had a long weekend due to easter so we spent it here at robotics.

For the robot we made a new base for the patent mission, and we widened the actual projectile itself. we also spent a lot of time testing and making sure the robot was consistent.

For the project we re-made our project board, and worked on putting our slides onto a computer for display through a TV. We also practised our presentation… a LOT just to make sure we had it all down.

This is our final few days of work before the worlds, so tensions are high. Either way, we hope to see many other teams at the worlds and to have a blast!

Thanks, The Sentinels.

Medtronic Canada

Today we went to Medtronic Canada for a tour and to present our project to them, and to ask some questions. It started with a tour, we saw a lot of very cool rooms like bench testing rooms and health conference rooms. Then we went to their museum area where they had a lot of old and new pacemakers (including a nuclear powered pacemaker) and defibrillators ( including one from the 1800′s).

After that we had our presentation which went very smooth with only a few small hiccups because we were out of practice. the they asked us questions, nothing too complicated, though. most were just about how we came up with our idea and how we got our info. Then it was our turn to ask questions. We asked about the process of getting our product on the market,  liability issues and the  testing process.

Over all we learned a lot about marketing our product and had a lot of fun learning about medtronic and their history.

Thanks, The Sentinels.

Sleepover day!

Today was a special day. Work carried out as usual for the first part of the day, then when the time came when we were supposed to leave, instead we stayed because today was sleepover day! we invited the other senior E-bots team to join us, while we played games, watched movies, and laughed the day away.  We played board games, like Wizard, RummiCube, Liars Dice. We watched Back To The Future, and we played video games like Star Wars; Battlefront. So as you can probably tell today was amazing and I hope that we do something like this all over again.

Thanks, The Sentinels.

Tired Mike?

world competition week 9

Today was an amazing day for project breakthroughs! We spoke with Dr. Kleimen A cardiologist from boston. He told us many important things, like that our sensor can’t be inserted in the arm due to too much movement and it should be inserted near the collar bone. We also decided our insulin pump that used to be combined with our entire system is now optional, because it’s a lot easier to just have the watch tell you what to eat to get your sugar levels back to normal. He also told us about the procedure of getting the sensor into the collar bone (examples are; How long the procedure takes,  doctors or nurses who can do the procedure, and what types of pain medication will need to be used).

For the robot we changed it so it turns better by spacing out the wheels more and changing around the placement of the light sensors we also changed around our arm attachment to have more pistons so it’s can be a lot faster.

Thanks, The Sentinels.

world competition week 8

Today, we worked on editing the project summary to change things that are no longer needed or aren’t true anymore. We talked to our coach about ASIC (or application specific intergraded circuit) which means a chip that only uses the applications that it needs, meaning less space taken up, and use less energy. We also looked at a different glucose reading technology using light to stimulate molecules. This new technology is interesting, but because most of the information about it is proprietary we don’t know much about it other than the basics.

For the robot we changed our main bot, so that on the sides theres sliders, rather than wheels to make it so we don’t get stuck on walls as easy, and to make it easier to turn off walls.

Thanks, The Sentinels   

world competition week 7

Today we went to the Hershey centre to watch the FRC (First robotics Competition) and be presented with a plaque by Dave Ellis. It was a really fun experience seeing all the big robots, and getting recognized by more for our accomplishments.  Then after all that was done we headed out to get pictures for a slideshow. We are going to be showing our slide show at our booth in the world competition. We took pictures of us making maple syrup, playing road hockey, tobogganing (with no snow), hiking, eating pizza, and finally meeting the mayor!

Thanks, The Sentinels

World Competition Week 6

Today, Friday, we went to Burlington mall for a presentation of our robot and project for the public. This gave us an opportunity to see a lot of problems that our robot had from being in a new place (light from a skylight messing up our light sensors) and we also had a problem with a motor failing on us, but we got a new one driven to us and fixed it by the end of the day reminding us to always bring an extra motor! After our mishap with the motor things began to run smoothly again with only a few small mess-ups on programs we were currently working on.

We had a good number of people come talk to us about the project and all of them seemed really interested in what we were doing, and how we were doing it!

Thanks- The Sentinels

 

World Competition Week 5

Hi! Today was a good solid working day, because we had no experts to talk to and nothing new to do, other than the endless pile of working in front of us!

So for our robot we worked again on the bad cells mission, but it is looking increasingly unlikely that we will use the new attachment because it will take too much time to work on it and make, and time is something we don’t have a lot of. We also worked on our new normal bone repair mission, but again the chances we will use it are slim unless it suddenly begins to work in our favour.

For the project, we worked on questions for medtronics because we are going to be meeting with them in a few weeks. We also worked on making cool buttons and bookmarks to take with us to St. Louis for handing out.

Thanks, The Sentinels.

Even with a lot of work to do, we still find time to play!

World Competition Week Four

Hello! Today we worked a lot on the robot and we had an expert come in to talk to us about the project.

For the robot we worked a lot on the Bad Cells mission, making it more consistent and fast. We also worked on a new innovative way of getting the cast and we had an expert come in to talk to us about P.I.D (proportional–integral–derivative controller) which is a system for calculating error values, so it will help us with a faster line follow.

For the project we had an expert talk to us about chips (the computer kind) for our device. We also did research on blood gas sensors and marketing, and we went over our scripts a couple times

 

Sharing on Family Day

Today was family day for everyone in ontario, so we spent the day sharing our achievements with the world at the Oakville recreation center. We had displays of our main robot, and also places for people to try the programing themsleves! We introduced a lot of new people to FLL, and had a lot of fun. after the day winded down we had a good idea of what our robot was good at and not so good at because of how many times we ran it. thats all for this week, see you next time!

Thanks, The Sentinels!