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