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New Mars Rover Robot lands on Mars on August 6th

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At end of today’s team meeting, we watched a short video on the upcoming Curiosity robotic rover landing on Mars called “Challenges of Getting to Mars: Zero Margin of Error” available on YouTube.   We discussed the engineering challenges, the meaning of zero margin of error and its ramifications.   The pictures of Curiosity on JPL’s web site show what looks to be the most sophisticated real robot we have seen.

Curiosity is scheduled to land on Mars on August 6th, 2012 at 12:30am CDT. Coverage of the event is planned on the NASA JPL channel. Mark your calendar and set an alarm.

 

Team Meeting results: Moonbots Lunar Base for video and game board Ultimate Landscape

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We designed a lunar base for robot explorers (and humans) at our team meeting today.

We also designed on paper our Ultimate Lunar Landscape draft for our MoonBots entry.  Coach showed us the basic rule requirements.      We want our entry to reflect real world planned missions so we reviewed mission in the Google Lunar X Prize.   Checked out Team Astrobotics plans (our sponsor is a fan of Dr Red Whittaker’s robotic wonders) .     Sponsor recommended checking our NASA JPL site for ideas too.  Also brainstormed about some challenge tasks for a robot game based on the moon so our planned landscape can support. Coach reminded us that we don’t need much info on mission or mission elements until Phase II.   Just need enough info to plan a board that gives us challenge opportunities.

If our missions reflect NASA and other nations real planned or executed missions this would help us educate other kids.    We need cool but doable missions for wow factor in Phase II.

Matthew at UTD Robotics Camp

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Model Scout Matthew spent the week at the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Day Camp offered by University of Texas at Dallas (UTD).     The program has a well equipped lab for students working with Mindstorms projects.   Dr. Kenneth Berry’s team staffs the camp.

Matthew had a great time.  He worked on several challenges.  His favorite project was building a remote control truck with 2 NXT bricks communicating via Bluetooth.

More information on UTD SEEC camps, can be found here: http://www.utdallas.edu/seec/RoboticsSummerCamps.html

Matthew leaves tomorrow for his first boy scout summer camp.

Model Scouts visits Pack 79

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Team Model Scouts setup and ran two stations on robotics at Pack 79’s meeting on May 5th.  We ran a station on First Lego League Robot Game. We also ran a station on robotic gadgets, robotic line following, sensors and attachments. Everything ran well except our HiTec compass sensor.  It was not working reliably.   We suspect the iron rebar in the concrete floor interfered with the sensor.

Robotics Presentation to Pack 1492 in Sasche, TX

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Team Model Scouts took a road trip to Sasche, TX to meet Pack 1492 on May 17th, 2012.    Naturally, we brought our robots.   We setup and ran three stations at the pack meeting: 1. First Lego League Robot Game, 2. robotic gadgets,  and 3. robot navigation —  a. line following using a color sensor, b. navigating to a beacon with compass and IR sensors sensors.

35 scouts from Pack 1492 attended the event.

Model Scouts receive Award at Boy Scout event

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Model Scout Robotics attended the  Boy Scout of America Circle 10 Council awards dinner at Plano Centre on April 19th, 2012.    On stage, each team member was awarded a Certificate of Achievement for their success as a Scout team in FLL arobotics competitions. The audience chuckled that our winning robot was named “ScoutBot”.   We were the youngest award recipients at the dinner.    Two of the Scouters there thought Katie might be the youngest girl to receive a Circle 10 recognition award (she’s 14) in the Council’s history (1913) since Boy Scouts is historically just for boys.  They also noted that maybe 1 Cub Scout in the council (our council is the large with about 50,000 youth members) would earn a council level award each year.   Our team has 3 Cub Scouts, so Circle 10 made Team Model Scouts night a very happy one!  The van was full of chatter on the way home.   I wish I had taken a picture of the Welcome Robotics team banner at the registration table but it did not occur to me until the next day. I’ll remember next time!