I ran into this website the other day. TryEngineering has some games that simulate the design process for a robotic arm, a parachute, and some other stuff. At least one of the games is a link to an external site.
Since I was working on the robot in the pits often, I didn’t get a chance to get too much of the souvenirs that other teams were handing out. Here’s a list of what I know of:
Nifty extending, collapsible pens from Google- I didn’t get one, since they’d run out by the time I got around to asking for one. Basically, hitting a button on the pen makes the two halves of its cover fold up like gull-wings and turn the thing into a pen-shape.
Rubik’s Cube Keychains from Google - I suck at Rubik’s cubes, so I didn’t get one. After Google started running low on pens, they made people solve these first before giving them pens. It worked.
Team Buttons: We all got a crapload of these. Teams with a bit of money to spare would have them made and passed out. Our team made do with finger traps from a local store. Some teams handed out stickers (both practical, like a battery disposal reminder, and just for show) or fridge magnets. I got a mousepad from one team, with their logo and number on it. It’s one of those hard-cover mousepads, so I’m holding off on using it.
Demonic Ducks: These are rubber ducks of various colors, and with horns, that one team was handing out for “adoption” to keep teams from all over in contact. I got an orange one. His name is Super Sayan(sic) and he is a ninja.
A rat finger puppet: The rat’s fur is kind of dirty-looking.
Various teams also gave certificates that said “Thanks for being on our alliance” or the like. Our team got a framed certificate from 1572 or something like that. The demonic duck team was handing out tiny models of the playing field with ducks hanging from the towers.
Well, I’ve been gone recently, and I blame FIRST Robotics. Our school formed a team for the FRC, which is the main competition, for high school and with the largest robots. It’s not a battlebots-like competition, since FIRST encourages sportsmanship and all that good stuff. They have a new game designed every year, and this year’s was basically soccer, with a goal at each corner of the field, foot-high, trapezoidal speed bumps, and two towers with crawl space and ball return chutes. The idea was to score goals. Balls would be returned rolling off the towers. Extra points for hanging off the top or sides of the towers at the end of the game.
We started the team in mid-May of last year, and the fundraising and planning started at the same time. We ran into problems, since NASA’s rookie grant went to Valley Christian of San Jose instead. We ended up getting a one-week extension to pay the whopping $6,000 registration cost, $5,000 of which came from a surprise grant from Google, and the rest of which came through fundraising and donations. As a note for now, we also fundraised for the money that actually went into building the robot. We also got another $1,500 from Dale’s Hardware, where our school goes for its maintenance supplies, provided we name our robot “Dale” and give two demonstrations of the robot at the store sometime this school year.
We started off designing the robot in Solidworks. Though we admittedly spent a bit too much time on the design and not enough on actually experimenting on our robot, computer design did give a lot of help on knowing where to position things and how to size them.
Part of why we spent so much time on design was because we sent our computer design to our co-captain’s dad, for him to machine out. He had to ad-hoc part of the design, which made it get back late. In the meantime, the team put together the default kit that FIRST gave us. I wrestled with the code a bit and got it running. I proudly deemed this “the first thing I made that could kill people.” This got the response of “I like how you said first.”
Later, the team had put together the robot we were planning to use, and ran into spacing problems. This resulted in some stupidity involving plastic boards and a whole bunch of mis-sizing. After we (someone else got stuck with that job) ground down the excess plastic since the safety bumpers for the robot had to be flush with the robot’s body.
Either way, after some more code fiddling and sifting through documentation, I got pneumatics working. That is, the pneumatics control device (a solenoid if you actually know what it’s called) worked. Turns out the device that actually controlled the pistons had a dead valve. One of our mentors gave us a new one. Our robot could now stab people in the shins.
Fast forward a few weeks, and I’m pulling an all-nighter to get all the code in, so that the robot will be able to use all the features we put in just that night, like the ball kicker itself. When morning rolled around we found out the kicker wasn’t working, but we basically said “screw it” and shipped off the robot.
Silicon Valley Regional:
We unpack the robot and spend all of the first day from about 8am to 8pm trying to fix parts of the robot, edit code, etc. We ended up missing two of the matches the next day due to some outdated software and other issues, since we couldn’t pass inspection and get on the field without that stuff. We basically panicked the whole day as we frantically tried to fix the kicker and add a ball guard. Our robot also got flipped over about every other match. We placed around 35 out of 50, and won Rookie Inspiration, which is the “Little engine that could” award. We could make a robot, but couldn’t win anything better. Rookie All-Star went to some 4-H sponsored team, when it should’ve gone to Valley Christian. Seriously, one of the 4-H team’s robot features was listed as “coded entirely in C++.”
No crap, Sherlock. Have you ever tried to code anything in two languages at once? It’s impossible. The team’s robot and presentation were both shoddy and unimpressive. It’s all good, though; Valley Christian won Rookie All-Star at the next regional they went to.
We set our sights on Rookie All-Star again at:
The Las Vegas Regional:
First, I now hate Las Vegas, for sure. We panicked less, and finally got that ball guard/roller working, so we could hold the ball in place. We nixed the kicker and added 2 more motors to the drive train. It went better than at Silicon Valley, but we still missed an early match due to problems at inspection. I also had some coding issues with the drive train that I worked out eventually, and we found out our robot was ridiculously stable. Even with a faulty drive train, it could run over a bump.
The biggest problem we had was that, during our second or third match, our CRIO (essentially the CPU of the robot) broke for no good reason. It had never broken in Silicon Valley, and we had run the robot tethered in our construction area literally minutes ago. One reason the field crew suggested was the metal dust near it, which hadn’t caused any problems before and which we had never bothered to get rid of. It was aluminum dust from some grinding done to the chassis. Did I mention aluminum does not conduct well?
Either a tiny piece of dust suddenly and inexplicably got into the CRIO, or the field crew messed something up, since they mentioned we were the fourth team to have a busted CRIO that day. The team captain is looking into it and filing a claim.
We placed 41 or so out of 47 and won Rookie Inspiration, again. The team that won All-Star actually deserved it this time, though. They got a double ticket to the national event. They also ended up on the winning three-team alliance that gets sent to the national event in Atlanta, Georgia. All I can say is: Good luck with 971 (Last year’s national champions). They beasted all over everyone at Silicon Valley, and they’ll probably do the same at nationals.
All’s well that ends well, I guess. Our robot and a bunch of loose tools are probably at the school by now, and we’ll crack the crate open and dust off Dale. Only problem is, Dale’s hardware still hasn’t given us that $1,500 (the understanding was that they give us the money, and we just have to give demonstrations some time or another). We also need a new $500 CRIO (we’re looking into that), and we still have to give those demonstrations. Either way, it was a fun year, and I’m hoping we get to have a robotics team next year.
That being said, our school and students have no good mentors, so we’re pretty much a purely student-run team, so we have no chance in the competition. Our school could pay for extra mentors, but we’re already a little tight on money, so that may not be the best idea. Whatever happens, I’ll end up leading something, be it a robotics club or a MathCounts team. Here’s to next year.
So I’ve written a new bit on why science education matters. It’s alot clearer than the previous one. It’s cliché, but every time I look back at the archives, I shudder at the shoddiness of some of my work.
Anyways, here’s the edited work:
We often hear people talk about the importance of science education. But why does it matter? Most people do not use scientific knowledge on a daily basis. They do not need to know information such as the processes of meiosis, or the electron configurations of elements. In fact, the National Science Foundation estimates that only two percent of the entire workforce works in a job that directly involves science. Given the relatively low percentage of people who will end up in a scientific field, why is it necessary for everyone to study and understand the scientific process and scientific knowledge?
The answer is simple: a situation in which only those who use science understand it, is simply untenable at best, and dangerously irresponsible at worst. In a world that runs on science, a scientifically ignorant public undermines the progress and safety of society. On the other hand, the promotion of science education ensures humanity’s advancement and safety.
The smallpox virus killed half a billion people in the 20th century alone, and was one of the most dangerous diseases in human history. But the discovery of a vaccine by Edward Jenner in 1796 eventually paved the way for the eradication of the disease in 1977. Although vaccination was initially a controversial procedure, the general public was kept well informed about the science behind vaccination and eventually rallied behind the process, giving enough political will to eventually eradicate the disease. This is a powerful example of the benefits of science education and a scientifically literate public.
But there are also examples of the dangers posed by a scientifically ignorant public. In 2007, a celebrity named Jenny McCarthy started a campaign against the use of the measles vaccine on the grounds that it caused autism. Since then, numerous studies have shown that this claim has no basis in fact. But because the general public was not educated with these results, many began to decline the vaccine for their children. This has lead to an increase in the occurrence of measles and threatens the lives of hundreds.
Vaccination demonstrates why it is important for the general public to be educated about science and its issues. In the case of the smallpox vaccine, having a scientifically literate public led to the eventual eradication of one history’s most dangerous diseases, improving the lives of untold numbers of people and making the world a safer place. In the case of the anti-vaccine movement, the opposition to vaccination has created needless suffering and has endangered thousands for no good reason.
By promoting science education, one promotes human progress and helps ensure the safety of the general public. It ensures that there is a scientifically literate public that will be supportive of new solutions, and prevents the undermining of progress and the endangerment of the public. In other words, science education matters, because it helps ensure the safety of the public and the progress of humanity.
William
So today, I discovered something awesome. You know how we always hear about how certain books are written at certain grade levels, correct? Well, today I learned exactly how these levels are assigned: the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. It uses a formula that relies on the ratio of the number of words in the article in relation to the number of sentences in the article, and the syllables of the words. It’s pretty cool.
| Score | Notes |
|---|---|
| 90.0–100.0 | easily understandable by an average 11-year-old student |
| 60.0–70.0 | easily understandable by 13- to 15-year-old students |
| 0.0–30.0 | best understood by university graduates |
This is the table for how easy it is to understand a particular piece of writing. Usually, the more difficult it is to understand, the higher the grade level.
For example, my previous “climate change” article had a readability score of 34 and a grade level of 13.
This particular piece has a readability score of 40 and a grade level of 11.
Now, this doesn’t indiciate whether or not your writing is any good, in terms of its ability to convey ideas clearly or have a logical structure.You could have a grade level of 20 and your writing can be an absolute piece of shit, or it can have a grade level of 7 and be the most brilliant piece of writing since To Kill a Mockingbird. It really doesn’t matter. It just calculates how easy it is to read.
Anyways, here’s a link to a calculator if you want to give it a shot.
William