Lego Stairs Climber

Date:  Sep 19, 2015

It is Saturday again.  Jay attends Robotics class every Saturday with his friend Riyandi.

This class teaches them how to use Lego Mindstorms to solve problem.

Let’s check it out how is their progress of learning robotics.

Wow!  They are treating it like their home.  Lying on the floor to program.  (no sleeping ya)

This week project is to climb the stairs.  And the stairs is these few stairs as shown below.

Sounds simple right?  

Well, this is a two weeks project.  Last week they failed.  Hahahaha  

This week, they seems to come up with a new design.

Last week, they build a robotic car that is powerful enough to climb one stairs and get stucked there.

So, teacher Enzo only flashed them with a video to prove that it can be done.  Perhaps a video of what they can do, and they have to build the robotic cars themselves without instructions.  I LIKE!

Think… Master Builder.

After they build the car, they will need to figure out how to program it.  Also modify and improve it.

See how much fun they have.  And how many times they have failed.  And they keep on learning to improve it.

Jay Jay slowly understand what is the problem he is facing.

OK.  Let’s see some actions.

This week, they added the climber wheels.  The figured that they need that climber wheels to pull the robot car up the stairs.

So, they need to figure out what to do, once they got on to one stair.

Riyandi one has a shorter climber wheels.  And why it got stuck?

So, that is the problem the kids have to fix.

 Jay’s one has a longer climber wheels but more unstable due to length. And notice that just below the EV3 module, there are two pieces of lego sticking out and that is obstructing the movement.  So, he has to redesign that so to make it smooth.

Almost there.  But keep repeating the actions as it failed to move up stairs #2.

By this time, there is only Jay Jay left in the class.  All the rest  have to go off because they have other activity.  So, Jay Jay gets all the attention from teacher Enzo.

But still he could not make it to the top stairs.  But his bot almost did it.

The reason is because the parts that holding the climber wheels are not strong enough.  So, that is why you see that it always bend a little, and that does not create the strength to pull the bot up.

So, Enzo passed him and let him go.  And he is so excited and explain to me what happen, etc etc.

The country wanted all the kids to learn programming and be a smart nation.

So, I guess Jay Jay should be fully prepare for it. 

This coming School holidays, I will teach him how to program an App.  :)

Fun At Robotics Class

Date:  Jan 18, 2015

Jay has been attending this Robotics class at http://www.wonderswork.com.sg since P1 until now. 

I think it is going to be hard to stop the lessons.

Wonders Work keep on surprising me without fail. 

Teacher Enzo keep coming out with teaching materials that grows together with the kids.

For example, this week, they design this motorbike car.  There are some new component in it.  Rubber band.

So after the car racing, they will take some time to go thru what they learned just now.

Energy.

Law of Conversion of Energy.

It is a simple motor bike design using the motor to store the energy in the rubber band, and then, the rubber band will make the wheels move.

So, they learned the conversation of energy.

To P3 kids, this is the first year they going to learn Science.  

Let’s see their motor car in action.

And it looks very fun.

So, I think I am going to let Jay Jay keep continue attending this Robotics course.  It will be good for him.

Robotics & Gears

Date:  Sep 20, 2014

Today project is to build a Beyblade top and its robotics spinner using GEARS.

Basically, the class taught them what is gears, how does gears put into action, why there are big gear and small gear, how to make things spin fast and spin slow.

For P2 students, these are new science concepts for them.  So, they definitely have an early start in understanding Engineering.

Let’s see how they put the gears and spinner into action.

It is amazing to see that, the spinner actually, in my opinion, spin quite slowly.  But the top actually spin much faster.  That is the magic of gears.

And I hope the kids will remember the application of gears and that is definitely one of the physics topic in a few years time.

Lego Mindstorm Flipping Gymnast

Date:  Aug 30, 2014

Jay Jay has enrolled into the Young Robotics Engineers class @ WondersWork at Liang Court.

And yes, he is now using Lego Mindstorm EV3 to program his robots.

Below is the info of the Robotics class he is attending.

  

Young Robotics Engineers (Age 8 & above)

This program is suitable for children aged 8 and above. Students will build more advanced robotics projects using Lego Mindstorm NXT2.0, Lego Mindstorm EV3 (age 10 & above, completed at least 8 lessons of Nxt2.0) robot kits. 

WondersWork:  http://www.wonderswork.com.sg/programs.php 

 

Let’s check out what he designed this week.

He needs to build & program a flipping Gymnast.

Teacher Enzo is explaining to him, why his gymnast cannot flip properly, because of the strength of the robot’s leg is too weak.  So, he has to think of a way to properly understand how a gymnast will need to do to flip a few times.

This is his Flipping Gymnast. 

I also get to see his coding.  HaHaHaHa… Keep on cut and paste so to do the flipping.  So, I can see his code become so long.

Nice try Jay Jay!  hahahaha

Later, I think teacher Enzo corrected him so that he uses a “loop” to repeat the flipping action.

OK.  Let’s see it!

I like this project!

 

 Now, let’s look at the Slow Motion.  Kind of cool!

Some friends ask me, why I keep sending my son to this course for so long.

Here is my thoughts...

1)  To let Jay have 2 hours during weekend to play with toys he love, i.e. Lego.

2)  Lego is building block.  It is imagination that is needed to build and design the robot.  Although there are a instruction pages to follow, but most of the time, Jay Jay likes to do it differently and have a lot of excuses and reasons.

3)  The programming is done on a Windows laptop.  So, this is the only way to let Jay Jay get in touch more with a Windows operating system.  As my home is completely Apple  Mac friendly.  Yeap!  Have not been using Windows for a long time.  I found that Jay Jay is quite well verse on operating a Windows OS.  And at home, he also know how to operate a iMac computer.

4)  He learned about math, and physics in this class.   All these are necessary to design the robot’s movement.

5)  He can play with his friends too.

6)  He can socialise with more classmates here.

7)  So far I see that 98% of the project are new project.  The design of the course is actually quit good.

8)  It make Jay focus, and think.

 

Robotics Using Lego Mindstorms EV3

Date:  Aug 16, 2014

Today at Wonders Work at Liang Court, Jay & Riandy had their first experience with Lego Mindstorms EV3.

Enzo (the instructor) decided to let them both try the EV3.  Previously, they uses NXT. 

This week project is a motorcycle that rides around the EV3 controller.  The motor sits on the controller itself and it rotates the wheels.

The programming style is different from the NXT.  So, they spent quite a bit of time to understand the interface, and trying to get their motorcycle working.

Everything seems new to them today.

Final check on the code and design.

 OK.  Finally, he got it to work.  But he has to keep pressing the controller so to stabilise the controller.  Otherwise, when the motorcycle turn round and round, it will flip the controller.

Here is another quick look at this week project.

Cool!  Jay was very happy today.

Letting the kid to have fun in some class that he likes seems to make the kid always looking forward to this class.  Jay always eager wanted to make new things, learn new things.  Slowly, he will learn a lot of things that is not going to be taught in the normal Primary syllabus.  I think this skill will be very useful when he grew up.

A Robotic Bridge

Date:  July 6, 2014

This is one of Jay Jay’s fun enrichment class.  It is Wonder’s Work (at Liang Court) Lego Mindstorms programming class for junior.

This week, they are building a simple machine, that can sense a small valley and build the bridge so that the vehicle can cross that bridge.

they actually have to think, 1) how long their bridge going to be, 2) what the vehicle do once sense the hole on the ground, 3) How much the vehicle needed to drop the bridge, and 4) remember to reverse a bit and lift up the arm so to cross the bridge.

And of course lot’s of troubleshooting before he can get it right.

Jay Jay was happy after the class and said, “I forgot to keep or lift up my arm, so, the machine pick up the bridge and it drop, hahahahaha”.

I am glad that the course now taught them how to troubleshoot, what to look for, etc.

See it in action.

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/v/D_T1pucaGg0

Even the gap is very small, the vehicle can cross it.

The programming.

OK.  We will keep this for another few terms.  Since it is a course that bring a lot of fun to him, together with his K2 mate, Riandy.  At the same time, he learned so much from the course too.

Lego Master Builder - Yoshihito Isogawa

Date:  May 6, 2014

Mr. Yoshihito Isogawa is a real person Lego Master Builder.

 

He actually wrote these three fantastic books to teach kids & adults how to build simple Lego machines.

Last week, Isogawa-san hold a Machines & Robots workshops at Liang Court.  WondersWork @ Liang Court invited him to come and give a workshop to the kids.

Since he is here, Jay bought two of his books for him to sign his autograph.

Happy Jay got his signatures on two of his books.  Yeah!  This is the first time Jay Jay meet an author of a book, and ask for the author’s autograph.  Cool!

Click the following links to check out his work!  

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.isogawastudio.co.jp/legostudio/index.html&sl=ja&tl=en

Look at this piece of art work.  It is a tape dispenser with a blade to cut the tape.  HaHa and it is build from Lego bricks.

He is truly a master builder.

 

The kids are waiting to see his work.

He brought a lot Lego machines that are made by him.  All these machines are very simple machines but yet complicated.

 

The workshop started around 2:40pm as we need to wait for the Obstacle competition to finished.

Oh, they have to wait for the MC - Ms. Reiko to finished the MCing the Obstacle course.

Isogawa will deliver his presentation in Japanese, and Ms. Reiko will translate it to English for the kids. 

Today workshop the kids are able to touch Isogawa’s work and play with it.  

When Isogawa take out his Lego machines, all the kids stand up and move towards the table to take a closer look.

Later the kids touches all sort of different kind of simple machines.

The color recognition robot.

The Lego Mindstorm EV3 robots.

Jay has learned from the workshop the followings:

1.  Lego bricks can be used to build real tools.

2.  It does not have to be a very complicated designed for the machine to work.  See how few bricks Isogawa-san uses to build all these wonderful machines.

3.  He learned about the Hydro power lego machines.

Most importantly, Jay & Kay had a lot of fun during the sessions.

Operation Saving Emmet

Date:  Mar 29, 2014

It’s Lego time!

This week, at the Wonder Work Robotics class, the kids are assigned a mission.

To save Emmet from the tall tower, where the Kragel is about to glue Emmet permanently.

So, here comes the first few tries… The route is correct, the stop is correct, but the spin is not.  It is too far away from Emmet.

After many tries.  Here is another one.

Yes, the hand able to sweet Emmet but Emmet drop from so high up and end up dead.

See… Emmet dead.  Wahahahahaha.

Yeap.  Just like Emmet, face down and dead!

After many trouble shooting.. Finally, he got it!  But placing some wheels at the seat there.  Wahaha

Emmet is finally save.

After so many months, teacher Enzo still amaze me with his resourceful projects.  It is like never ending.  Wahahaha