Nandan Nair

Today was the 2015 First Lego League (FLL) Lego Robotics competition at the Newton North High School. The top 6 teams advanced to the State Level Championships to be held in late December.

The journey to this competition started 2 months ago. There were various teams competing to represent our school. However, my team, the “Central Rams” made it to the competition. Our robot, MASTER3R, had a very simple yet effective design and so was the case with the attachments.

The Challenge

The FLL challenge was called as “Trash Trek” and included the following missions:

• Salvagery
• Demolition
• Plastic Bag near Turtle
• Octopus in Circle
• Composting
• Truck
• Plastic Bag in Machine

The salvagery and demolition were both connected missions. There was a platform with many bricks stacked up into the form of a building, and underneath that lay a brick with a toilet, window, faucet and plastic bag attached to the end of it. The platform has a lever which by pushing down will knock down the platform, which is demolition. MASTER3R has to flick the lever to knock down the building, and grab the plastic bag on the other side of the building – salvagery.

There is a plastic bag near the end of the board, and a turtle behind it. MASTER3R has to grab it and bring it back to base and save the turtle from being trapped in the bag.

There is an octopus in our base. There is a certain circle in about the middle of the field. This circle is the only safe zone for the Octopus to live in. MASTER3R has to move the octopus into this zone to save its life.

There is also a composting machine about straight through to the end of the board. It has a button, which if you push, it will start to create compost. In a while, a brown circle (aka compost) will eventually come out. MASTER3R may bring the “compost ” back to the base.

There is also a truck at the side of the board. Its engine is broken and needs to be pushed to its destination along the track. Near the rod is the machine not only with the plastic bag that I will talk about next, but also has a load that the truck will pick up while being pushed along, and at the end will be pushed out of the truck.

The final mission is located at about the center of the field. It is a machine that has a plastic bag jamming it from working properly. MASTER3R has to grab it and pull it back to base.

Our Team

Our team was QPS Central Rams. My school mates Samarth, Pablo and Karthik were in the team besides me. We all know each other very well which benefited us to work together and create MASTER3R.

Our Robot

MASTER3R was unlike all the others because we were one of the only teams that used track wheels instead of tire wheels. We chose the track wheels as we were having difficulties making it turn. Our robot was much smaller than most of the competing teams. That made us feel that our design was efficient and optimal. It consisted of 4 motors – A, B, C and D. A and B enabled it to move forward, backward and turn. C and D enabled the upward/downward motion of the attachments.

The first attachment that we made was by far the simplest one. We took two hooked lego pieces and attached them to each of the motors. This was used for salvagery and Plastic Bag in Machine. The attachment for demolition and composting consisted of two hooked lego pieces connected by two inverted L-shaped pieces. The attachment for Octopus was similar to a shovel, with two connected boundaries that prevented the octopus from escaping while being pushed to shelter. The most complex attachment was a moving hook that locks the plastic bag in its grip once it catches it.

The Results

While we consistently scored more than 175 points in each of the 5 trials, we did not make it to the State Level championships as other teams did better than us. However, I had a lot of fun given that we were competing against 6th, 7th and 8th graders from more than 25 schools across Eastern Massachusetts. It was a great experience to work with my team members, represent my school and also learn how different teams went about executing the mission. I had lots of fun during this program. I want to sincerely thank our teacher Ms. Mastico, FLL and our Principal Mr. DeCristofaro letting us participate in this great challenge. I look forward to participating in the next competition.