4/19/14: FINAL MEETING SUMMARY!

Hello readers,

FINAL MEETING OF THIS YEAR'S FLL SEASON! We had an excellent final meeting, We perfected and finalized the missions, we practiced everything multiple times competition style and we ran through our practice questions. Also, two coaches from the Lego Dragons graciously consented to come and judge us on our performances. 

This has been an amazing FLL season for all of us in the BrickBusters. Samarth, Shane, Srikar and I hope to continue on to FTC next year. Medini, Sriya, Suhani and Shaun hope to continue to do FLL and go to the World Festival one more time. We are all very excited for the World Festival. We give a HUGE thank you to our amazing coaches, Mr. and Mrs. Madhusudan. Thank you to everyone who helped out our team on this amazing journey.

Thanks and GO BRICKBUSTERS!

- Mukund Madhusudan

Lego Meeting Summary: 4/16/2014

Hey, Brickbusters!
Today was more of a practice day, than a work day. We all memorized our lines perfectly and practiced the RDES speech a lot of times (near the mission board as well.) Coach gave us information on the schedule of the World Festival and explained what we will have access to and when. Some reminders for next class include-

•  Review Project Skit and RDES lines. 
•  Review notes for Fire Retardant Balloon and The Lightening Diverter.
• Go over summaries for Robot Design, Project and Core Values.

Only a week left for the World Festival to start!!
Thanks, and GO BRICK BUSTERS!
Samarth.

Lego Meeting Summary: 4/15/2014

Hey, Brickbusters!
In today's meeting, the main thing that we focused on was some questions and especially the RDES speech; though we did practice the skit a few times. Lastly, we ended our class by working on Mission 3. Some reminders for next class include- 
                               
1. Review the RDES and Project Skit lines (Tip: all lines must be memorized by tomorrow.)
2. Review the Robot Design, Project and Core values summaries.
3. Review notes for Fire Retardant Balloon and Lightening Diverter.
Thanks, and Go Brickbusters!
Samarth.

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Lego Meeting Summary: 4/14/2014

Hey, Brickbusters!
We started off by practicing some Robot design and Programming questions. Next, we practiced our RDES (Robot Design Executive Summary) speech. We also ran through our Project Skit and finally worked on Mission 3. The younger ones revised their knowledge of Core Values by looking at the presentation that we had created for the State Competition. Some reminders for next class are-

• Review your lines for the RDES as well as the Project Skit. (Tip: All lines must be memorized by Wednesday.)
• Look over the Fire Retardant Balloon and Lightning Diverter notes. 
• Look over the summaries for Robot Design, Core Values and the Project.

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!
Samarth

Lego Meeting Summary: Sunday 4/13/2014

Hello BrickBusters,
Today was also another good practice day. The older kids started off by practicing and improving the missions. During that time, the younger kids reviewed their questions and practiced their lines for the project skit and the robot design executive summary. After that, we all practice the project skit, RDES, and the core values song. Then, we went over some of the questions. After going over the questions, Samarth and Srikar prepared notes on the Lightning Diverter and the Fire Retardant Balloon, parts of the WEPADS to refresh everyone's memory about the various components of the parts. In that time, the younger kids refreshed their memory on wildfires. As we are approaching the date for the event that we are all looking forward to, here are a few things that we need to keep in mind:

• Practice Project Skit Lines
• Practice RDES Lines
• Review Questions

Thanks and Go BrickBusters!!!
Srikar

Lego Meeting Summary: Saturday, 4/12/2014

Hello BrickBusters,
Today was a productive day in practicing and making changes to all of the items that we originally had. Everyone practiced the Robot Design Executive Summary (RDES) along with the project skit and core values song. We also practiced the questions that we had come with before the qualifying tournament. Here are a few reminders as we approach the last week of practice before the World Festival. The older kids then practiced running the missions while the younger kids continued practicing and reviewing other information.

• Practice Your Lines For The RDES.
• Practice Your Questions
• Continue To Review Your Lines For Skit Depending Upon Comfortability With Them.

Thanks And Go BrickBusters!!!
Srikar

Lego Meeting Summary: 4/6/2014

Hey, Brickbusters!
We started off with practicing the Robot design speech. Through this process, we edited our script and added/ subtracted a few lines. After practicing the speech for about 3 times, we split off- doing work assigned to each group. The younger ones helped select some core value pictures for our team, while the older ones worked on perfecting the missions to the best possible. We also worked on redesigning our Robot design board and concluded on what to improve from previous experiences. Some reminders for next class are:

• Remember to review your questions; they are posted on a Google docs document which has been shared to all team members.
• The older ones have to write about a particular section in The World Festival Team Information Sheet and send it to the team.
• Finish commenting the programs and send them to Shane for printing.

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!
Samarth

BrickBusters Meeting: 4/3/14

Hey readers,

We recently had a meeting, our first after Spring Break. For the World Festival, we are required to make a mini-presentation for Robot Design Judging. Shane and Mukund were hard at work to finish it, and at the end of the meeting, they were able to complete it.

Unfortunately, Shaun was unable to make it to our meeting, but the girls worked on what we did for outreach in our season. They wrote down everything we have done for outreach and created a timeline listing everything we have done.

Samarth and Srikar ran through our completed missions a few times, and worked on commenting the final program that needed commenting. The mission they were commenting ran through 100% perfectly multiple times, without a hitch.

The major things we need to do now are:
- Practice the skit
- Clean up the mission and project boards
- Practice the new robot design presentation
- Run through the missions competition style and make them more consistent

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

- Mukund Madhusudan

Meeting Thursday, January 30th, 2014

This was our first meeting after the State Competition. We did not work on improvements during this meeting, but we discussed the World Festival with two members of an FTC team that has been there twice, the Batteries in Black. We talked about everything from size of the event to awards and decorating the pit. Thanks for BIB's great input on all things Worlds!

Afterward, we discussed changes we will make to everything.

Robot Game: Add missions including obstacles, perfecting base isolation test, picking up more supplies and improving consistency. We also plan to modify our attachment motor placement, and possibly redesign all our attachments.

Project: Making to-scale blueprints of the WEPADS, and potentially developing prototypes for them. We will also make our skit more entertaining and sharpen up our knowledge of wildfires.

Core Values: We will improve our core values board and possibly improve our team "costume". We intend to work on displaying Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition through everything we do, and conduct further outreach.

Other: We would generally like to make our boards look nicer, and we would like to improve our blog. We also need to add pictures to our collage board.

We already cannot wait for the World Festival, and we have a lot to do to prepare for it!

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

-Mukund Madhusudan

Lego Meeting Summary:1/3/2014

Hey, Brickbusters!

This was our first meeting in 2014, so a very HAPPY NEW YEAR to everybody! We started off by understanding what a capacitor was, as this question had come up in the Project judging room. A capacitor is a device that is used to store electric charge. It consists of one or more pairs of conductors and is separated by an insulator. We then worked on the missions, and added picking up the water near the Cargo plane and also were thinking of picking up the flashlight near the tree branch. We were able to perfect the mission until the House Lift and planned to continue next class. Remember to read the link on capacitors. The link to the website is as follows:
http://www.rapidtables.com/electric/capacitor.htm
Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!
Samarth.

Lego Meeting Summary:11/02/2013

Hey, Brickbusters!

Today, we started off, by looking at some of the new robot game updates, one of them being- It is okay if other tree branches, except for the East tree branch falls, if the robot does it by mistake. But, for intentional actions the points will be taken away. After looking at the updates, all of us started working on our respective things, like-

• Samarth, Mukund and Srikar worked on the presentation and Mukund also finished the layout of the board, as a scaled model on a document.
• Medini, Suhani and Sriya worked on their robot game mission, which was to push the ambulance and the supply truck into the yellow region.
• Shane and Shaun worked on their missions too- which were the House Lift and Tsunami Waves. Additionally, they also did the Tree Branch mission.

Lastly, we ended the class with a practice over our scripts so far. The girls also memorized some of their parts of the script, WHICH IS AMAZING!

Thankyou, and Go BrickBusters!

Samarth.

Lego Meeting Summary 10/31/2013, Halloween!!!

Hello BrickBusters,
      This was a relatively short meeting but we were able to get a good amount of work done. Srikar worked on making the presentation with Samarth and Mukund. Sriya, Suhani, and Medini worked on practicing the skit to make sure that everything makes sense. Later in the meeting, Mukund and Samarth worked on their missions; perfecting the consistency of the construction relocation and getting the evacuation sign to stand up.

Thanks and Go BrickBusters,
Srikar Tallapragada

10/27/2013 Lego Meeting Summary

Hello BrickBusters,
      In today's meeting we worked in our original groups on various things. Srikar, Shane, and Shaun worked on programming. They worked on picking up the pets. Even though they succeeded multiple times, they were not consistent. Sriya, Medini, and Suhani also worked on programming too. They worked on trying to get the supply truck and the ambulance into the yellow region. In order to do that, they had to find out how much the robot had to move before turning, how much to turn, and how much to move the attachment until it could push the supply truck and the ambulance. Samarth and Mukund worked on the finishing touches to the presentation on wildfires that was started by Srikar and Samarth at home. They were able to finish the entire presentation off. Also, they worked on the script for the skit that we will perform in front of the judges at the tournament. They are part way into that. Now that the project is done, the homework is to think about the programs that Coach has assigned and to maybe create a rough program that might work.

Thanks and Go BrickBusters!!!
Srikar Tallapragada

Lego Meeting Summary:9/29/2013

Hey, BrickBusters!
In today's meeting, we started off by directly going to the board and understanding the missions. There were some missions that had restrictions,whereas some were pretty straight forward. Then, we all were divided into groups, and each group tried and understand some of the missions that were assigned. This way, the work got faster and then each group explained the missions that they studied to everyone. We also started to plan and arrange the order in which we think we should perform the missions. The groups were as follows-
1-Mukund, Srikar and Shaun who studied the bottom part of the missions.
2-Samarth and Shane who studied the middle part of the missions.
3-Medhini, Suhani and Shreya who studied the top part of the missions.
After looking at the missions, we had a glance at the stemcentric tutorial of Data Variables and Operations for EV3. Unfortunately, we never got time to start the presentations and decided to start them next class. The homework for next class, is as follows-

• Get ready to present about your solution towards wildfires for next class.
• Look at the missions and think as to what accessories can we build in order to accomplish the missions. (You can either look at a mission that you like, or choose from the missions that your group worked upon)

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

Samarth.

9/26/2013 Meeting Summary

Hello BrickBusters,
        Sorry this is late. In today's meeting, we basically just discussed about our ideas for different solutions possible to either detect wildfires ahead of time or to prevent damage. We all came up with many great ideas! Some of them included sprinklers that spray water in dry areas, sprinklers that spray Alumina Trihydrate (ATH) in the dry areas in the forest, animal tracking devices,drones, and other detectors.
This is the homework for next class:

1. Research about and work on your solution.
2. Read the EV3 help on data wiring and variables

Thanks and Go BrickBusters!!!

        Srikar

Lego Meeting Summary: 9/22//2013

Hello BrickBusters,
          In today's meeting, we first started by reviewing what we had learned last time about the switch blocks, and how they function. In addition to this, we learned about the "My Block Builder" tool in the EV3 software, its function (to reduce the amount of clutter). After that, Coach assigned us the job of programming the robot to move back whenever the robot senses the following colors: black, red, green, blue, and yellow. We split into three groups to make the program and test it: Sriya, Medini, and Suhani; Mukund and Shane; Srikar, Samarth, and Shaun. After the programming, we all shared the solutions that we had in mind. Here were some ideas of solutions:

1. Balloon(Samarth)
2. Animal Detector(Suhani)
3. Sprinkler System(Srikar)
4. Tunnel(Mukund)
5. Detector. Firefighters on alert when weatherman announces any thunderstorms during the day.(Medini)
6. Method used to "control" the weather(Samarth)-Can be implemented into our solution

This is our homework for Thursday:

Programming:

• Watch the Stemcentric Tutorial if you haven't already
• Learn about variables/data inputs/my blocks
• Read about and understand the missions. http://www.firstlegoleague.org/sites/default/files/Challenge/NaturesFury/NATURE%27S%20FURY%20Challenge.pdf

Project:

• Research about the current solutions for preventing or stopping wildfires.
• Come up with other solutions possible. List their pros and cons.

Here is another link useful that talks about many wildfires. Coach has also sent out an e-mail.

http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-wildfire.htm

Thanks and Go BrickBusters!!!

Srikar

FLL Meeting: September 19th, 2013

Hey BrickBusters!

Sorry this is late, but here it is.
We had a great debate/discussion on what our project topic should be; the Tillamook Burn or the Dalles wildfire. We debated so much and it was split so perfectly, that, in the end, we chose to research both for our project. This will be beneficial because we will have a wide variety of information to present to the judges, and we will also have two field trips.

In addition to the debate, we learned about Switch Blocks, Loop Blocks, Loop Interrupts, and how to link multiple processes in the new EV3 software. Our homework is as follows:

1.) Research on potential resources for the Tillamook and Dalles fires. Also, look at solutions and come up with a few ideas yourself.

2.) Work on creating a program using the EV3 software with a switch block, loop block and possibly try to run multiple processes at once.

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

Meeting: September 15th, 2013

Hey BrickBusters!

In our meeting today, we began to learn about programming with the new EV3 software. Coach had created a small program in which the robot would go onto the small mat, sense the black line, turn around, say the word "black", and repeat. We were supposed to replicate this program. We learned about the rotation block and the other move blocks, as well as working with the new color sensor and the loop. We finished building the EV3 robot, so we were able to program it and use the color sensor. We were all able to successfully complete the program, and we ran them perfectly.

After we completed working with the EV3, we all gave our presentations/speeches on the community or wildfire we chose. Here were the chosen communities:

Medini: Warm Springs fire (July 20th, 2013) : Lighting 

Suhani: Arizona (Yarnell) (20th June 2013, 8324 acres burned caused by lightning

Sriya: Dalles: 3 fires happened (Aug 18-19, 2013): 4700 acres ( buildings damaged): Lightening 3 places. 

Samarth: California (Cedar fire/San Diego Oct 25th 2003): 100000 acres. Human caused. $2 billion damaged. 

Srikar: Yellowstone fire  June 1988- nov 1988, 1.2 acres were burned.

Shane & Shaun: Tillamook fire 1930s

Mukund: The Dalles (same as Sriya)

We took a vote, and in the end it came down to the Dalles fire and the Tillamook fires. Because of that, we will have a debate next Thursday, and here is our homework preceding the debate:

1.) Go through the new EV3 software tutorial video (on StemCentric), and learn the basics.

2.) Prepare for the debate:

Dalles fire: Mukund, Medini, Sriya, Suhani

Tillamook fire: Srikar, Samarth, Shane, Shaun

Justify your choice and be prepared.

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

- Mukund Madhusudan

Lego Team Meeting: September 6th, 2013

In this meeting, we had to accomplish 2 things:

1. We had to program the robot to sense a back line and come back (Samarth, Srikar, Shaun, etc.)
2. We had to build a moderately strong chassis with the EV3 for testing on the Robot Game Board (Mukund and Shane)

Building the chassis was fairly easy because of a new part in the EV3. It looks like a square with a bunch of holes in various locations for the pins. We were able to connect both motors perfectly placed 1  

stud apart. After that we added plenty of exterior and interior supports and braces to make sure that, in the occasion the EV3 got stepped on, dropped or tripped over, it would suffer no major damage except  

for a couple of loose pins. After placing the brick, we put on the wheels (with much difficulty).

For programming Srikar, Shaun and Samarth created a program that worked in theory, but malfunctioned due to the distance between the floor and the color sensors. The NXT brick might have been switched with the older version, and compatibility may have been a problem.

To wrap up the meeting, coach showed the team the stuck on parts and pieces on the lard, complete after 3 meetings worth of preperation and building. For next meeting, remember to bring a lot of research in on wildfires.

Thanks, and Go Brickbusters!!!

Shane Puthuparambil

Lego Meeting Summary: 8/29/2013

Hey, BrickBusters!

In this meeting, we had to accomplish a tough decision as a team. All of us were assigned a project, that we had to work upon and present it today. Some people chose hurricanes, tsunamis or earthquakes. But, we ended up with VOLCANOES AND WILDFIRES as our deciding titles for the project. When we couldn't decide on which one to choose, we were then assigned another research project. But, this one is with teams of 4, making it 2 teams. The teams were made as follows-

Shane, Samarth, Medhini and Shaun, who will research more about WILDFIRES. 

Mukund, Srikar, Shreya and Suhani, who will research more about VOLCANOES.

Next, we all were asked, what is our primary interest in. Whether programming, or building or research. After that, we went to the board and started figuring out, as to what are the missions and what can we do first and last. Also, the last object on the board(the airplane, with the tower and pulley) had been figured out. Some reminders for next class are-

• Research with your sub-team on your assigned topic.
• Make sure that you are ready to present too.

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

Samarth.