Lego Robotics Science Fair

This month our scout troop entered the Lego Robotics Science Fair. Our troop had two entries. One of the entries was Tanner's Lego Mindstorm robot. He and a couple of boys from his troop worked on the robot design during scouts and then Tanner brought it home to fine tune.

Tanner and Chad spent the evening before the event getting the robot to work just right. The robot had to go through an obstacle course. It moved forward to pick up a ball, then had to move the ball to a specific location (turning a couple of times) without going over the end line. Here is a diagram of the course.

It took a while to perfect their design, but they were able to make an arm that could move up and down over the ball. This allowed the ball to move freely, but not go out of bounds. After several tests Tanner and Chad were able to get the robot to do what they wanted.

Saturday morning Tanner and Chad met the scout troop at the local university for the competition. They had a lot of fun, but unfortunately they did not place. They did learn a lot for future competitions though. The troop is already talking about new designs!