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.

In the first meeting of my Introduction to Robotics class for the thirteenth week of the third term, I had the three groups prepare their robots for a preliminary face off to be held in the middle of the period.

This, I explained to them, is to give them a chance to be able to perfect their designs with respect to their opponents, instead of designing “blind” so to speak, before the first of their two competition dates.

One group – the ones who won fastest time in the previous stair ascension and descent contest - for example, may as well have been building the foundation of a building with how heavy their design was. In terms of “punching” power, they had two short rotating arms, one vertical, the other horizontal.

The second group, what has been designated the “dream team” because of their sheer number of dean’s list members and recent math championship finalists (five – which is more than half of the group), had a similar design but not as heavy, and with a top spinner than had “elbows” that flailed out its forearms. And exactly like helicopter rotors, the arms tapered off at the ends.

The third group had a design that reminds me or an opened cardboard cube in a T, with a motor running “blades” at each end. Their design was also low and light, so that as each end spun, so did the base of their structure wobble or dance.

When the first two faced off, the first thing I could see was that the second group’s blade was too high to even hit the first one, so that had to be redesigned, which they did, putting the spinner at an angled tilt.

As for the third group, when they faced off, one of the wires to their motors got disconnected, which, in the competition, would have been an immediate loss. They have to be able to secure that, using items or parts available in the kit.

Although I gave first place in the grade for that meeting to the first, I told them their problem was that they would win if it were just a sumo sit out competition, but it’s not, so they have to have a bit more offensive.

Session 1063’s wire came off, so its motor won’t run. Class dismissed.