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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Our virtual competition

Ok, today was the big day, the day we finally competed! We were all very exited. First, we sat down and answered some questions about the robot. We told the judge about its balanced design, large loop holder, sensors, and other features. Then, it was time to compete. We ran our robot, and unfortunately for us, it did not perform as well as it had the night before. The night before, it had been doing fine, as shown in our documentary. However, due to technical difficulties, we only scored 90 points today, which was low compared to our max, which is 180. Despite this pushback, we are still happy with our results as our robot displayed its best programming and physical attributes such as its alignment with objects on the field, its compass sensor for exact turns, and its ultra sonic sensor for alignment with the walls. Overall, we had a load of fun and wish all the remaining teams the best of luck.

GO MOONBOTS!!!!!!! Thank you for making our summer interesting, educational, and fun.

Also, here is the feed from our robot's perspective:

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Video Documentary, Blog Updates, and Website Updates

Ok, the video documentary is done, (edited by me) and is up on the website along with a whole bunch of other cool stuff! Be sure to check out the robot page for a great evolution chart, the programing pages for a copies of our programs and a programing log, and the video page to watch out brand new documentary!

www.coastalquarks.org

Good luck to all the finalists!

For those people who don't want to go to our site, here is our documentary:



Also, a last minute note about our last minute programing over the weekend, As many of the team members were at karate camp, Brennan has been working hard each day to tweak our programs and make them work perfectly. Be sure to check out the programing pages on the website for more info!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Blog number 12!!!

We've just finished working on our documentary, and it seems to be working out great! We got a bunch of clips in talking about our journey, so you'll be able to see our overall experience soon. Lately, we've also been working a lot with sensors, implementing them in our programs to help us be more accurate. Watch and see!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Coastal Quarks Video 11

Last night we stayed up REALLY late working...I'm talking 2 A:M...But, we got a lot done- yay!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Meeting 10!

This video blog features a special note from our coach, Ming! In this meeting, we worked on advancing our idea involving the acceleration sensor to determine our velocity as well as discussing point strategies and making a good amount of progress on our autonomous programming. I believe that if we keep going at this pace, we will easily make our deadline and will soon have a consistent working, scoring robot.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Blog no. 9

This week we did yet more building work on the robot, as well as thinking about what we might be able to do to make our robot more intelligent. We have this cool idea that involves using calculus and the acceleration sensor to figure out our velocity and hence help determine were our robot is. We also worked on our autonomous programming and got it to go down the landing ramp and pick up some loops! Overall, we got a load of important stuff done.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Video Blog 8

This meeting we did some more work on the robot. We redesigned the side walls to hold loops better, as well as mounting several new sensors. We also adjusted our camera carrier so as to hold the new, smaller camera we had ordered. We then tested our new design with a program to go over the craters. It didn't work, but with a little adjustment, it should.