FLL - FIRST Lego League
White Wolves
The 2007 season was about alternative energy. They had some wonderful
presentations for the judges and did very well. Their team work was awesome. The White Wolves had a very successful
robot design this season. During the Mid- Michigan Regional we won the well
sought-after Technical Programming Award. This allowed us to go to state. At the
Michigan State Regional (State Finals) we finished in the Top Ten, out of
48 teams
and our top score was a breathtaking 370 out of 400 points. Overall, we
achieved a score of over 1300 points of 4 matches; leaving the total
possible 1600. We were 3/8 of an inch from wining the high score, we obtained
400 points in the first match but our robot was a little off on the last run and
put the dam 3/8 of an inch over a house, this was a 30 point penalty. If we
would have made this run we would have beat the two highest point teams by 20
points and that would have put us in first place. We would like to thank our G.R.A.Y.T. Laviathon mentors for helping
us throughout the entire season, you made learning fun and easy. The F.I.R.S.T. Lego League is a younger and less expensive version of the High
School Robotics (F.I.R.S.T. Robotics League). It is comprised of Junior High
School students, grades varying from the 6th to 8th grade. We are given from the
first of October to their competition date; which for us is around December.
We use the Lego Mindstorm NXT to compete with. The Lego kit is a little different than the original Lego's but use the same idea and some of the older parts can be used with it. You use a computer to make the programs and download them to the NXT module. The game each year changes but the objective is the same , place the robot in the home base and have it run missions to complete the tasks. For the tasks that are completed per the rules you can receive points. We also give presentations in front of judges, learn to work together and show team spirit to receive awards.
The G.R.A.Y.T. Laviathon coaches have been mentoring a Lego team since 2002 and hope to continue for years to come. We also like to have the high school students mentor the Lego students, this allows them to learn how to work with younger students and give them a sense of pride for what they are accomplishing.
We tried a four wheel steer design but found that it did not to work very
well for missions. One motor drives all four wheel, while one motor steers
them 360 degrees along with the arm motor. The idea was to make the turns more
accurate and allow the arm to turn. With so many gears the accuracy was lost.
White wolves at Kettering university
