Engineering NotebookLogo: Newton Rangers
Robot Name: Rob NewtonSchool: Scoil Mhuire na nGrást‘Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann
na daoine’
Contents Robotics What does an engineer do? Inspiration Isaac Newton and his 3 Laws Humans V’s Robots What is something that you have used today that was designed by an engineer? Why is classical mechanics such an important part of engineering? Why is making a prototype so important in the design process? What have you learned from the interactive process? Interview with local engineer Ideas and discoveries Key concepts from the Vex curriculum The first Robots and Drones Interesting Facts Game Theory & Initial Design Process Discoveries Programming and Modkit Design Review Poem: Robots by the Newton Rangers Sources
Robotics
We are entering a Robotics competition on Friday the 6th of February 2015 in CIT.
Robots are made by engineers
Robots are mechanical devices controlled by a computer.
Industrial robots are used in factories, doing precise tasks over and over without getting bored.
Robotics is a form of specialised engineering that includes design, construction, operation, and application of robots
A Robot is any man-made machine that can perform work or other actions normally performed by humans.
What does an engineer do?
An engineer creates structures There are 5 Basic Types of Engineering:
1. Chemical engineering – uses physical and biological sciences to convert raw or chemical materials to solve a problem. E.g. Phizers makes paracotemol in Cork
2. Civil engineering - uses design, construction, and maintenance of physical and natural built environments to solve a problem. E.g. Cork County Hall rebuild
What does an engineer do?3 Electrical engineering – uses electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism to
solve a problem. E.g. the kettle switch
4 Mechanical engineering – uses design, construction, and mechanical power to create machines and mechanical systems that solve a problem. E.g. engines
5 Specialized engineering fields – These engineering fields use two or more types of engineering together to form a brand new kind of engineering. Biomedical and robotics engineers are two examples. (We discovered other types as well, Biological, process, software, nuclear and Automotive engineers.)
The Inspiration for our Team Name,Newton Ranger & Robot Name, Rob Newton
We admire Isaac Newton. In our research we discovered some facts about this
English scientist.
Isaac was born on a farm in the U.K. in 1643
His mother sent him to school but wanted him back to work the farm
His headmaster persuaded his mom to let him go back to school
He went to the university in Cambridge. During the plague, all students were
sent home. He saw an apple fall from his mom’s farm and thought of the force
that pulled the apple to the ground-Gravity
He invented calculus (measures curves)
Isaac Newton-Our Inspiration Gravity effects everything on earth, the same force pulls the moon
around the earth, the earth around the sun
Optics. He discovered white light has many colours and he made the
reflective telescope
He received a knighthood for his work on currency so people could not
cheat the money system
He is the only scientist to be buried in Westminster Abbey with the
royalty of England
Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine (Our favourite ‘seanfhocal’ we learned in Irish means)
Under the shelter of each other we live together
Or
Simply, people need people.
Three Laws of Isaac Newton
1. An object in motion will stay in motion and will stay at rest unless an
unbalanced force acts on it
E.g. seatbelts keep you in place when your mom or dad hit the brakes
2. An object that has an unbalanced force acting on it will accelerate in
the direction of that force. E.g. bobsleighs need force at the start
3. Forces always run in equal and opposite pairs
E.g. Swing of a door
Humans V’s Robots
What is something that you have used today that was designed by an engineer?
A toaster
A vacuum cleaner
An interactive whiteboard
Smoothie Maker
Phone
Light switch
Braces
Why is a classical mechanics such an important part of engineering?
The 1st rule is measurement. There are 3 rules.
Speed, Torque and Power
The physical principles of Speed, Torque, and Power all fit together.
This is named Classical Mechanics.
In Classical Mechanics, speed and torque have an inverse (or
opposite) relationship – as one increases the other decreases. Higher
speed means lower torque and higher torque means lower speed
The amount of power supplied has an effect on how much speed
and/or torque can be produced in a mechanical system.
Mechanical Advantage E.g. the gears on a bike can be changed to
make going uphill easier
Why is making a prototype so important in the design process?
“Prototype means the original model to be copied or
developed” - Oisin
“The prototype has been perfected, and then we can test the
initial design” – Claudia
“To review and make the best changes” - Liam Óg
“Practice makes perfect” - Abby
“To look for any design faults e.g. we needed to lift the robot
so the battery slipped in and out easily” Nathan
Why is making a prototype so important in the design process?
“You can afterwards experiment using different methods you used when constructing the prototype” - Abaigeal
“So we don’t have to ‘re invent the wheel’ and learn from the existing discoveries” - Conor K
“You need to see one way of building it first to give you confidence to try other ways” - Conor O’H & Abby
“It would be overwhelming and daunting without the step by step guidance” - Darragh & Eoin
“When we made mistakes we were able to go back and check the plan again” - Darragh O’R
What have you learned from the interactive process? (Testing and Organisation)
We have learned about robotics , modkit, an art committee and engineering
We learned to follow the prototype instructions exactly and re do it to become better at it’ Aoife
We learned to change pieces on the second build to make it better’ Sara
We gave more room for the battery to enter and exit’ Matthew
We need to listen to each other’ Katalin
Many things worked and many other didn’t. It took a while to perfect the design’ Claudia & Sara
‘’The claw needed to be square to lift the square blocks’ Matthew
‘we put in a larger claw to push cubes but had to make it long and short so it would not knock the towers’ Fionn & Stephen
We had to charge the battery every two days’ Conor O’H
To make the remote wireless we need to programme the robot brain light needs to flash as well as the light on the remote we discovered by accident
Interview with Local Engineer:
What type of Engineer are you Matthias?: Mechanical Engineer
What are the hardest parts: 1. Time pressure and ensuring the customer is happy with your product
and service that you provide2. The financial element to running a project within budget
Do you like it: Yes
What is your favourite area: Problem solving and the satisfaction in accomplishing a suitable solution.
Interview- Questions
Can a robot be solar powered? Yes - just use a solar powered battery
Can a robot hold water? Yes - as long as the electrics are sealed
We discovered in our research: Nanobots
Nanobots are incredibly tiny robots, down at a microscopic scale. Robotic engineers are now looking at using Nanobots to help fight
disease, pollution and fix tiny cracks in buildings.
Key Concepts from the Vex Curriculum
Friction e.g. brakes
Centre of gravity. We need to ensure the robot is balanced and does
not topple over
Speed, Torque (spinning force) and Power (rate)
STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics
Anything is possible!
The First Robots
Pino is a Chinese robot that taught himself to walk
Kismet the robot tried to understand facial expressions. He now lives in a museum
Drones Drones are flying machines that can fly by themselves without a pilot. They look like aeroplanes and are very good for military They are great if there is a forest fire, they can detect oil or gas and
they are used in spy missions In January 2015 a drone crashed into the garden of the White House by
accident!
Interesting Facts
Engineers are now researching AI (artificial intelligence)
We learned from the Vex curriculum that there are 6 simple machines
inclined plane wedge screw Pulley Wheel and Axel Lever
Game Theory & Initial Design Process-Discoveries September:Ms. Hurley attended a workshop
on Vex Robotics in EMC. We got one Vex box for two 5th classes. Our school principal, Mr. Hennessy, ordered another Vex Robotics box for our 5th class.
We worked on Modkit-(see notes below in Modkit section)
We chose our STEM research project. We are voting between civil engineering on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai or on chocolate and food science engineering.
Snapshot from our Website
View more on our website www.belgoolyns.scoilnet.ie/VexRobotics1415.html
Game Theory & Initial Design Process-Discoveries
October: Our Vex starter kit arrived. We started to build it in groups of three using a rota and class list applying a tick tally sheet system so each class member would have an equal number of goes at construction.
Ricardo realised in the new Vex Robotics set was missing a part-Vex IQ Bumper Switches PIN 228-2677. Our school principal wrote to Vex for the missing piece.
We completed the robot following the Vex IQ User Guide- Starter Kit With Sensors.
Game Theory & Initial Design Process-Discoveries
November: Claudia and Eloise discovered we were missing a part on
the Robot
We then realised the part we could not find was a different colour from
the user guide and found it
The class named our Robot, Rob Newton as a reference to Isaac
Newton our favourite scientist who led us to understand gravity.
We are studying old phrases in Irish and loved the phrase ‘Ar scáth a
chéile a mhaireann na daoine’ meaning people need people, or more
accurately, under the shelter of each other we live together. We
realised we needed the expertise of others to succeed.
Game Theory & Initial Design Process-Discoveries
December: We decided to rebuild Rob Newton again to familiarise
ourselves with the parts and check everything.
The missing bumper switches had not arrived and we followed up with
Vex
After many brainstorms sessions, we voted on the name: Newton
Rangers
The class designed images for our team the Newton Rangers
The art committee designed a poster and badges based on our favourite
designs.
Ms. Finn helped us add photographs and information to the school
website
Game Theory & Initial Design Process-Discoveries
January: The remote was stuck going forward on the modkit.
Mike visited from lifetime labs. He brought the game arena. Rob
Newton was ready to go. Mike fixed the claw button by re
programming the claw button on our remote.
Game Theory & Initial Design Process-Discoveries
We each had 30 seconds to play and then swopped. It was hard to
swop as we were enjoying all so much but we did obey the bell
We saw that you have to move the red, blue and green blocks to the
scoring zone.
If you stack them up you get more points.
We improved our stacking techniques by using the corners
After the visit to decided to build a wider static claw to push more
cubes.
The wider claw we added, kept falling off until we added more 1x1
connector pins to make it more secure
Programming and Modkit September: To get started, we downloaded http/ www.modk/it/
onto the 20 laptops on the school laptop cabby. After trial and error, Fionn realised that google chrome was needed to download it properly. Unfortunately, the laptops kept wiping modkit every time we shut them down as the ICT support person, Richard, set this up to prevent them being overloaded. It was very time consuming each time but we completed it in rotas. We informed Richard on the school ICT crib sheet
Programming and Modkit
October: We awaited technical support from Richard to cure the wipe
off, of the installed modkit programme each time the computer was
shut down. As a solution, we installed modkit permanently on Ms.
Hurley’s laptop and the two class PC’s to work continuously on a rota.
November: The modkit guidance youtube videos from Vexrobotics are
blocked in the school internet. Fionn and Stephen took small groups in
turns to work on modkit
December: Sara’s Dad sent us a step by step guide for
troubleshooting issues with Modkit
Fionn and Stephen, were voted team leaders on modkit as they study
scratch outside school in KCS which proved to be great leadership
Programming and Modkit
January: Richard arrived over the holidays and installed modkit on the
laptops without them being wiped after every shut down.
Mervin and Mike visited on Friday 16th January with the arena, showed
us the required videos and how to save the programmes in teachers
icloud on a Gmail account
One of the two class PC’s had issues. It would not download to the
brain as we needed a firmware update 1.20 which would not install.
A week later it succeeded as we used a more modern laptop
Programming and Modkit
The wider claw we added, kept falling off until we added more 1x1
connector pins to make it more secure
January 29th : We rang Mervin and with his advice on Modkit and we
worked on calibrating the remote control to allow it work remotely
We have 7 Modkit programmes saved on teacher gmail account.
We are perfecting the two best programmes moving, Rob Newton
with and without the control wire.
Programming and Modkit
Fionn, Sara and Stephen have worked on the Modkit programmes.
The learning curves were trying to download the firmware update 1.20 onto
the robot from the computers
The two programmes have been saved onto the icloud on Ms. Hurley’s
gmail account
Mike and Mervin called and out two modkit programmes worked on the
visitng robot as our brain and battery had to be replaced
Design Review Why was it done this way? To pick up the cubes efficiently
Did you think of doing it a different way? Yes like a combine harvester
or a crane
Why did you rule out other alternatives? Because we have more
control when staying closer to the trialed and tested prototype
Does it fulfil our requirements and specs? Yes
How can we make it function better? Yes by lifting the brain higher
to smooth the battery transfer in and out
Design Review How can we make it weigh less? We needed to weight to keep it
grounded
How can we make it faster? Use more motors but we only had
enough for the wheels
How can we make it more robust? By adding weight and not using
our initial combine harvester design change
How can we make it smaller? We liked the size but we could make
it smaller by using one motor but then we would not be able
to move the claw
How can we make it more efficient? Keep working on improving
the claw
Design Review
How can we make this easier to construct? The user guide was
excellent but needs to add the correct colour to some of the
smaller parts in the book
What other functionality would be easy to add? A longer iron bar
for the pitch shaft would be great have because it would go
into the motor properly
Robots, Robots, Robots
Robots, Robots, Robots,
Futuristic, fun, force of friction robots
Vex, vintage, various, valuable robots,
Robots, Robots, Robots!
Engineers, engineers, engineers,
Educated, extraordinary, effective engineers,
Creative, clever, chemical, competent engineers,
Engineers, engineers, engineers!
Vex, vex, vex,
Projects, participation, programming Vex,
Modkit, mechanical, manual machines in Vex
Vex, Vex, Vex
By the
NewtonRangers
Sources:
Brain pop
Wikipedia
Small World, Geography and Science by CJ Fallon
Encylopedia
Vex Robotics curriculum
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