Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

During the first meeting of my Introduction to Robotics classes for the twelfth week of the third term, which is also the first meeting of their last and some would say best project, which is the head to head battling robots.

I will, by the way, talk about the result of the stair ascending and descending competition as soon as the video is uploaded from the school’s official camera by the Media Resources Office to the computer and passed on to me, either by CD or through my portable hard disk.

There was some confusion at the start of the meetings. From the videos of last year’s competition that I had them watch, and from my remembrance of the discussion with my co-teacher who handled last year’s classes, I thought the limit for the base of the robot was six inches by six inches.

It turned out to be too large. It definitely was not six by six units as measured by the studs of the assembly kit, as that was too small and would have resulted in all the robots being too top heavy.

Maybe it was six by six centimeters, but I thought of that too late, as I had already decided by then that it would be ten by twelve studs as the maximum for the base, which is twice the area of the largest single piece.

I also clarified the rule that no wheels could be used for the base of their robots, and that stabilizers and walking legs can only deployed for five seconds at a time.

Any longer and they would be marks against the group’s robot in case of a draw at the end of the predetermined time period of each round, just like with any parts falling off the robot during the competition.

One of the tactics I noticed that a lot of the groups started to use because of what they saw in the videos is making their robots bottom heavy, which is difficult knowing that only the parts that are from the given kit to each group are allowed.

A loophole that the students are using is to store disposed of batteries (which their brain box needs, so technically it’s part of the kit) at the base of their construct.

Session 1059 is top heavy. Class dismissed.