Ho, Ho, Ho

Robotic Santa has been spotted in our house....we are all ready.

Earlier today, Josep working on Santa's sleigh

Sleigh all finished, and taking a well deserved break

Josep working on reindeer and Santa

171 steps later: finished project!

Santa under the tree, with abominable snow cat

Happy Holidays to all!

Santa's Sleigh EV3

A while back RoboCAMP sent me a link to this EV3 Santa project.

Josep and I will try to build it over the holidays and bring it to Academy on Tuesday.

I do not know for how long they will have it up, but right now you can see the building directions and download the program online here.

Enjoy!


VIDEO: RoboCAMP - Santa Claus's Sleigh LEGO Mindstorms EV3

Mindstorms

Three generations of smart bricks.

First of all, let me say that I was very proud of how your projects performed at our showcase. Congratulations.

Today we spent some time discussing what we are going to cover next year.

We are pretty much done with Lego WeDo for now, although we may revisit some complicated projects later in the winter. Starting in January we are going to start building with Lego Mindstorms.

Lego Mindstorms provides a more sophisticated building platform, with more sensors and motors than WeDo, and with a steeper programming learning curve.

I think our students are ready for the challenge.

VIDEO: Camila Bottke: LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3



Enjoy the holidays!

Lego Challenge

Today we finished our soccer tournament project.

We also started working on our final project: a Lego Challenge.

For the next few classes our teams will be developing a set of solutions to a given challenge that will, hopefully, be displayed at our winter festival.

Keep posted for pictures and videos of our progress

Three projects interacting

Sleeping giant

Today we had a small class (Veterans Day).

We decided to work on a new project while waiting for everyone next week (when we will coordinate our soccer tournament).

Enjoy the video below.


VIDEO: Learning in Fair Haven: Lego WeDo Giant.

Not quite ready

Cool bird!

Today we almost finished our joint project. A couple of them still need some tweaking.

Next week we will program and make the four projects interact.

Great team work. I am very impressed how all of you are learning to help those who need help in your teams without taking over.  I know it is hard sometimes, but you are all being fantastic about it. I am very proud of you!.

Enjoy the pictures below

Finishing touches: cheering fans.

That is some kicking...

Goalie all ready!

Soccer

Today we worked on our roaring lion and next week we will be making three projects that should interact handsomely, one soccer kicker, one goalie, and a group of cheering fans.

We have enough sets and the right amount of students to make it work! Watch the video below to get a better idea of what we are going to be building

See you next Tuesday!

VIDEO: SuperRobokids: Lego Wedo Soccer game.

Roaring Lion

Our drumming monkeys worked out perfectly today. Teams were able to modify them (software and hardware) to achieve different rhythms.

Next Tuesday, using a tilt sensor we will develop a lion that roars and pounces up on passers by when approached with something to eat (similarly to our first gorilla that moved when bananas were being dangled in front of it).

Please watch the video below in preparation for next class. Thanks and see you on Tuesday!

VIDEO: Lego WeDo Roaring Lion

All good things...

Bathyscaphe descending into a "trench"

This week we finished our bathyscaphe and programmed it. It worked as expected.

All good things must come to an end and so we must say good bye to our first roboCAMP class for now :(

The good news though, is that next session we will be doing three new projects which hopefully will be fun.

Who knows, we may even make something special for Halloween, we will see.

Propeller stops when it reaches bottom.

Thanks and see you in a couple of weeks!

Drumming monkey

Today we finished several projects and explored variations on the software and design of our tops and AT-ST.

Next week we are all going to start a new project: a drumming monkey. Once finished, we will modify our design to produce different beats.

Please watch the video below and pay attention to the last part to learn how we are going to accomplish that variation of our beats.

See you next week.


VIDEO: Lego WeDo - Drumming monkey

Almost Finished

Today we finished our bathyscaphe. Next day in class we will program it.

The rest of the class will be devoted to play with all our creations at once.

Here is a picture of our engineers, proudly showing their work during this session.

Congratulations M and J for a job well done!

See you on Friday for our last class.

Spinning Tops

Today we welcomed two new students to our class. Welcome S and T!

We finished our AT-ST walker and two automatic top spinners. Next week we will have a friendly "competition" to study how design, weight and symmetry affect the performance of our tops.

See you next Tuesday!



VIDEO: Doogarry - Lego WeDo Spinning Top

 

Lego WeDo: Dancing birds

Today in robotics we did two projects. One of the teams is still building an AT-ST walker (we are having a small problem attaching the legs, so we will have to solve that issue in class next week). The other team finished a dancing birds robot that used pulleys for motion. Please Watch the videos below to see how the size of the pulley and position of the belt affect rotation speed and direction)


VIDEO 1. Lego WeDo - Dancing Birds

VIDEO 2: Lego WeDo - Dancing Birds


VIDEO 3: Lego WeDo - Dancing Birds

Today we started working on our AT-ST Walker but then decided to revisit our gorilla and bumper car robots, they are so much fun. We better do less playing and more working next day in class....or maybe not. We will see ;)

Checking out some online projects

Building a Lego WeDo AT-ST walker

Lego AT-ST Walker robots.

Today we finished our gorilla and our alligator. Students had fun modifying programs and making their robots perform "goofy" routines. We will continue working on them and perhaps film students describing their performance in our next class.

Some of the teams have started working on our AT-ST Walker. I found these two videos below that show Star Wars vehicles in a context other than that of their imagined universe. I think they are quite cool.

See if you can spot the AT-ST walkers and enjoy!



VIDEO: Leaked Star Wars Episode VII Fimset Footage



VIDEO: Death Star over San Francisco

Lego WeDo and Mindstorms

Hello and welcome to Academy robotics!

Today we started our first project and although we had some glitches with our computer connection, students were great about it and we all adapted and moved on.

Hopefully next Friday we will have things working smoothly ;)

Below are some projects we explored today. See you next Friday!

VIDEO: RCX Bumper Car



VIDEO: Lego WeDo - Hungry Alligator

Gorillas, bathyscaphes and AT-ST walkers, Oh my!

Welcome to a new homeschool year!

Check out some of the Lego WeDo Education projects we will be doing in our co-op and Academy classes during the next few weeks!

See you in class and I look forward to helping you build and program some awesome projects!






Gorilla




Bathyscaphe




Star Wars AT-ST Walker

Welcome!

Welcome to Robots NY.

In this blog you will find regular posts that will help you prepare for class and reinforce concepts learned in our workshops and clubs.

Here you can expect to find all things robot and related technology: from videos of our creations and projects, to technical tips, to references of robotics in popular culture. See the videos below for a sample of what we may be building.

I am looking forward to working and learning with you!



Pitsco-T-Bot II




CNET- Building a Robot with Lego Mindstorms EV3