589!!!

Today we filled out a Wednesday challenge form for the first challenge of the year, the spaghetti bridge (The link to the WC form is listed below). The point of the challenge is to make a spaghetti bridge that can span 2' and hold as much water as it can until it breaks. The only materials that you can use are woodglue and the spaghetti themselves.

Today we learned how to make an electronic notebook in class. Learning how to program a website so that it can be used daily will be essential for us to know for the rest of the year.

Today we learned about marquees and how to make them work. I drove and I figured out the marquees by analysing Dr. Neat's site, found the marquee line of code, and copied it into my file.

Today we thought of ideas for our spaghetti bridge. Josh thought of a very good idea that I think would work well. Basically, it is a frame that is two triangles on top of each other with a connecting piece in the center:

Today at lunch, right before class started, I created marquee inception. I thought that when you put a marquee inside of a marquee, the inner marquee would just speed up, but no, in the famous words of Chowder, "I was wrong, I was horribly wrong!" By continuing to put marquees inside of marquees, I ended up with the thing above. But today in class we worked on our spaghetti bridges and Josh and me modified his idea. Now, instead of having the two triangles meet on the base, they now have a space in-between them. There is also now a connecting piece that connects the bases of the two triangles:

Today we worked more on our bridges. Neato informed us that now, instead of having the 20 spaghetti limit, we could now use any number of spaghettis that we wanted, 21, 30, 400, whatever we thought was necessary we could do. Me and Josh continued on our idea, while Alvin was still being useless.

Today we were informed that the competition was not going to take place on Wednesday, but on Thursday instead. This means that Me and Josh now have another day to work on our bridge. I think that we will have enough time to build our bridge, if Alvin doesn't mess anything up.

Today we worked more on our websites. I think we should have worked on our bridges, but Neato has a plan, I hope. Besides that, we got pretty far into working on our sites, Neato explained to us how to put pictures into our site, but I already knew how to, I just looked at Neato's site and figured it out myself. The last few minutes of class was crazy, everyone was going crazy trying to get something done on their bridges. We (me and Josh) looked at what we had and realized that we wouldn't have enough time to finish our bridge, we only had the main struts done and we only had now and the next day to finish our bridge. All we needed was time, one more day would be enough, but of course, we couldn't change Neato's mind.

Today is the last day that we can work on our bridges. Alvin broke one of the struts and we didn't have a single face complete. So we went into emergency mode, we glued one face correctly, but we couldn't glue the other one. So we attached two support struts that stuck up into the sky when the bridge was laying on its side just so that the thing could stand. The bell caught us off guard and I stupidly trusted Alvin to finish the job for us. I don't know how the bridge will look at open house, but I hope that Alvin did a good job (I never thought that I would ever say "Alvin did a good job").

Today...our bridge was complete, it was going to work, it was in one piece, then Alvin destroyed it. he was messing around and swinging it around, he dropped it, and it shattered. Me and Josh made a last-ditch-effort to make a bridge out of the remnants of the old bridge and a bunch of spaghetti in a giant bundle! The bridge worked! It actually worked and we didn't get last! I don't know how it happened, but it happened. We made the worst looking bridge in about 10 minutes and it worked. It held almost a third of its own weight and the glue wasn't even fully dry. Me and Josh are the comeback kings!

Today we were told the story of Dr. Neat's weekend. It was entertaining and I was listening, but I was also working on my site. Neato also told us that the Wednesday challenge form that we downloaded from his site the first time around was WRONG. The old file was missing the lessons learned box. I didn't want to completely redo my spaghetti bridge form, so I just added the box to the existing form. Then I downloaded and replaced the blank form in my notebook and then all was well with the world.

Today we did the marble and tube challenge. The challenge was to take a marble and roll it down a tube that each person had and to have land in a bucket on the other side (full problem statement in WC form below). Alvin was in my team and he just wouldn't be quiet when we failed a lot because of it. In the end we lost, but it was still fun, except for Alvin.

Today we just worked more on our sites, nothing major, but I found out that my teacher's share folder doesn't have anything new in it. All of the files in my folder are from last year. So I think that if I want to put a shared picture into my site, I have to put it on a flash drive and transport it to my computer. It doesn't sound fun, but I thing that I will be able to deal with it. So if there is an extreme lack of photos on my site, you know why.

Today we discussed the 2014 JPL Invention Challenge (rules in link below). We threw around ideas for how to approach the problem and a majority of them were very good and reasonable answers. Alvin drove, and because he did, he was able to annoy the presenters the most. Every single time someone introduced their idea, Alvin would find some way to shoot it down and tell them that their idea was wrong. This is all standard for Alvin, and by the end of the day, everyone wanted him to shut up and listen. Mr. Wilton also came today to talk to us about the challenge and to give us pointers on our ideas (link to his company's site below).

Today we further discussed the JPL Invention Challenge. The people that didn't present on Friday presented today, all with pretty good ideas on how to approach the problem. I tried to concentrate as much as I could, but my stomach ache was hard to ignore. It has been getting progressively worse ever since it started on Thursday of last week and I have no idea what it is or how to fix it. Anyways, we then moved on to Sketchup. Finally, the day had come when we were to be introduced to Sketchup. My pride and joy would finally be shown to all who wish to learn it. They will be amazed at my skill, for they do not know the potential that is hidden in Sketchup. I will lead them to enlightenment so that one day they too can spread the knowledge which I am granted (Okay enough of the intense-villain-monologue talk and back to reality. Examples of my work from last year are listed below). For some reason, Dr. Neat let Alvin drive, even though I had been sitting right next to the projector and Alvin had been the driver the past few days. Neato pretty much did the same thing he did last year, showed us the ropes and told us to mess around with it, but he also said that whoever needed help should come to me for advice and guidance. We are probably going to play around in Sketchup more tomorrow and I hope that I can at least drive and show the class some shortcuts and tricks that will make Sketchup easier for them.

Today, the game was released. Also today, I had my appendix out. It turns out that the stomach ache I started having on Thursday of last week wasn't really a stomach ache at all, it was an appendicitises! So the game predicted the day that I would have my first surgery in my entire life. So you could say that it was my to have my appendix out on the 9th of September, 2014 (that was a lame joke). When I got out of surgery and I got back to my hospital room, my parents told me that when the surgery was done and I was asleep in the recovery room, the surgen that operated on me came out and told my parents that my appendix had not yet exploded but, to quote, "It was huge." So I can only assume that if I waited another day, my appendix would have exploded.

There is probably some sort of wednesday challenge today, but I do not know what it is because I am absent today (WC form below). I will get the information on what happened from a friend the next time I go to school.

Today was my first day back to school after I got my appendix out. We talked about the JPL challenge a little while and then we went into sketchup. This time, we were to make a Jenga block, simple, yet challenging for me. I figured out that I could modify the dimensions of the textures in the paint tool. The text is going to be the most challenging part of the block because I need to figure out how to make a FLAT image that has the effect of a shadowed object and still looks 3 dimensional.

Today we worked more on our Jenga blocks. I started to work on the text but encountered a small problem. The Jenga text is made to look 3D and outlined at the same time, so I tried the outline, but it didn't look good. And then I went on to making a full 3D text and then scale it down into a flat plane, but every time I would try to make it flat, the faces would freak out and break physics. So that annoyed me a bit.

Today's Wednesday Challenge was a competition where the groups faced off to see who could make the tallest card tower. This time around it was just me and Connor, not that difficult, but my computer was going crazy. I was going to make the sketchup of our design, but no matter what I did, I could not get my computer's touch-pad to work. Every single time I would go to click an something normally, it would thing I was right clicking and it would show me the right click menu. If I managed to get my cursor over the taskbar, I couldn't interact with it, when I clicked, nothing would happen. Anyways, in the end, me and Connor could not get our design to work and went with an emergence card house (WC form below).

Nothing much happened today, I did some sketchups on my computer that suddenly fixed itself (I have no clue why this happened, but at least its working), but by fixing itself, it deleted Unity and Filezilla from the computer and I found that a little odd. We tried to go online but, as usual, Neato's site locked us out.

Today Neato asked me to think about teaching the class sketchup on Mondays. Its a very big thing to me to be asked to teach a topic to an entire classroom just because I know what I am doing, it just feels cool. I worked more on my Jenga block and tryed to fix the text issue I had encountered

Today Dr. Neat informed the class that from this point forward, Mondays would be devoted to sketchup. Neato and I would work together every Monday to teach the class the next step in sketchup, today we did a playing card. Also today, I finished my Jenga Block. I ended up not making the text flat, but sticking out just a tiny bit, it was the only way. I also found out that I could import 2D images from the internet and put them in my model, making the playing card much easier to make, I just imported a picture of the top of the card and a picture of a bottom and fitted them onto the faces of the model.

Tuesday-Friday, 9/23-26/14, Day 30-33: THE DARK ZONE

This point in time will forever be known as THE DARK ZONE. This time gap between entries is due to the death of my computer, trusty old computer number 2. In honor of his service, THE DARK ZONE will become a memorial to his loyalty and his unbreakable will to go on. I can only hope that he is having a fun time in the afterlife, and that he knows that I will never forget him. Goodbye, old friend.

Today my computer was still dead, but we tryed to go live with the web sites a little, but again, we were locked out because of too many trys. Then we did a sketchup model of a lid... thing (that's the best way I can describe it). I didn't work on it because I was creating a login profile on computer 20, my new computer. It's not 2, nothing will beat 2, but it's close enough.

Today we continued the lid thing sketchup and I finished mine. It looks pretty good if I do say so myself, not to brag or anything. In this case, the follow me tool was my best friend. I basically made a flat arc thing that was a single plane of the lid, and then I made it like it was a sphere, put a circle on the bottom, then had the tool do its magic. I had to make some modifications to the resulting shape and then it was complete.

Today was a Wednesday Challenge that was kind of odd. We had to watch two videos, one was on a bionic limb, (almost like a terminator), for people who have lost limbs, and the other was on a strange wheelchair that would allow a paralyzed person to be more mobile. after we watched the two videos, Neato asked us the challenge question, if we were to loose our leg in some way, which option would we pick, the bionic limb, or the wheelchair? (Link to WC form, bionic limb video, and wheelchair video are listed below)

Today we finished filling out our Wednesday Challenge forms and it was basically just a work day. Nothing much happened, it was kind of nice. I started to replicate the jenga block that I had lost when my computer died, but I wasn't going to make the text, that was a pain and really not worth it.

Today was again another work day where we worked on our sites and our other miscellaneous projects. Neato asked me what would be the next tool to learn in sketchup and I said that it would be the move and rotate tools. Neato agreed with the move tool but not the rotate tool because it is apparently too complicated to learn now. I don't think it is that complicated, but Neato did bring up a valid point, because I am so good at sketchup, the tools may seem easy to me, but not to other people.

Today I taught the class the move tool in sketchup. I really wanted to teach the rotate tool to, but Neato said that I shouldn't, and I agreed, it would probably be an information overload to some people. I showed them the tool by coping the already existing jenga block and making it into the jenga block tower that the game is known for. I wanted to make the blocks have physics, since my new computer has sketchy physics on it, but the blocks refused to cooperate. I applied the physics just like I have in the past, but the blocks refuse to move. I tried every trick in the book from resetting the physics, to making a completely new model. I eventually gave up and I just had to stick with a non moving structure, but it wasn't a big deal.

Today we were introduced to the first quarter Wednesday Challenge, make an arc bridge. Neato picked our teams and the challenge ended up being the same one from last year. The goal is to make an arc bridge out of multiple of the same block, (like our idea below), and have the bridge span the longest distance with the shortest possible longest side. The team with the highest score, the span of bridge divided by longest side, wins the challenge and gets an A for the quarter.

Today me and my group worked more on our bridge and I was thinking of ways to bend the rules. One way that I thought of was using balloons put around the room in an arc bride form, but it is not an arc bridge because there is no keystone. I also thought of using one block of ice and the blocks were the molecules, but this was quickly shot down because the molecules were not countable and they were physically bonded together, so there is no keystone. We ended up going with our original idea, but we didn't know which type of foam would work the best, so I will bring in some soft foam and some stiff foam tomorrows

Today I brought the foam in for my group, soft foam and styrofoam, so that we could build our bridge our of both materials materials and see which one would work better. The styrofoam was very crumbly and hard to work with, so we ended up not using it, but we did use the soft foam. It was easy to work with and a breeze to make, and because the blocks were cut directly apart from each other and then put back together, they meshed perfectly and held together very well. All we can do now is hope it works tomorrow.

Today all we had time to do was to set up the bridge, get it's photo taken, and get our measurements. We had to set up our bridge laying down on it's side on a flat board, squish it with another board, and then carefully pull the boards away so that it is standing on it's own. I didn't think it would stand, but I guess I proved myself wrong. We ended up having a span of 7 and 15/16ths of an inch instead of 8 inches, and our longest side was 1 and 1/4th of an inch instead of 1 and 5/16ths of an inch. So our span and our longest side were both a 16th of an inch short, so we actually ended up with a better score of 6.35 instead of 6.095238. But since class was so short today, I will have to do my notebook over the weekend, but that's okay, it's doable.

Today we worked on our websites and tried to get them online, but Neato was annoyed at how much we were messing up filezilla. So he went around to everyone and asked them to get to their web sites online. It turns out that my notebook didn't count because I turned it in too late, so I got a bad grade for the first quarter, which kind of sucks.

Today we worked the whole period on our arc bridge wednesday challenge PowerPoint. I finished mine and it looks pretty good (link to PowerPoint below). It was actually really fun to make and I hope that it will bring me and my group a good grade. I put a PDF link and a PowerPoint link below because you only get the full experiance if it is in PowerPoint form.

Today we did the radioactive golfball challenge from last year, but Neato put a little spin on the name and instead of calling it the radioactive golfball, he called it the ebola ball. Very fitting for the state of the world health. But in all seriousness, Josh and I were the judges of this challenge, I timed the groups while Josh observed the group. After their run, I would show the time to Josh and he would record it on the "official paper". Since I was a judge, I will have a link to the official scores below along with my Wednesday Challenge form.

Today we disused the Wednesday Challenge and Neato decided to put a little spin on the challenge, the two fastest times, Forrest and David, Kevin and Rhys, would redo the challenge, but with the other team's device. The results were surprising, Forrest and David won by about a minute! By looking at the teams do their run, it was obvious to see that the device was the problem, not the competitors.

Today we talked about the current state of the invention challenge. The two groups presented their ideas, and the rest of us analysed them and came up with ideas to better the inventions or answers to the team's problems. I found that one part of Conner's design, the connection between part A and part B, was flawed. I drew up a VERY rough representation of the joint in sketchup and how it works in the photos below. As you can see, when flat, the joint would work great, but when manipulated, a gap would form and the ball would most likely stop or just bounce off the track. I didn't have enough time to show it to them today, but I will on monday.

Today we were told to make a pencil in sketchup. I had done one last year, but I was determined to do better. I realized that the class didn't know how to make hexagons, so I showed them how to make one and I continued to make my pencil, but I left the projector on showing what I was doing. Some watched in awe and some just worked, but just kept going. I was unable to finish my model, but I will most likely finish it tomorrow.

Today I finished my sketchup of my pencil. It ended up looking much better than I thought and it is definitely a step above what I did last year. Neato wanted me to show the class how to center two cylinders on top of each other, so I obliged and showed them.

Today we did the Cat and Dog Wednesday Challenge, the challenge from last year. The question was to design a device that could detect the difference between a cat and a dog. I was the "Judge" of the challenge (more like the collector of sentences), and I had to combine the sentences from each group into one all-knowing file that contained everything from each group (The links to all files related to the challenge are listed below).

Today we just watched a mythbusters episode since Dr. Neat wasn't here today. The episode we watched was "slipping on a banana peel" and "homemade dimonds". That episode finished before the end of the period, so we watched the begining of another episode.

Today the invention challenge groups shared their current situations on their ideas. They were interesting, but normal. After that, we watched another mythbusters episode since Neato had to go and do stuff and things. I turned in my notebook, and all was well.

Today we started work on a lego block model in sketchup. originally, I was going to just make a normal square lego block, but then Josh challenged me to make a very complex block, a slanted block (I will show a picture of one when it is complete). He said, to quote, "I expect nothing less than perfection" and I obliged. In the one class period I was able to make the outer shell of the block. At this rate I hope to have the block completed by Friday.

Today we just continued our lego models, along with working on our sites a little bit. Neato paired us with a partner that needed help with their sites, I was paired with Conner. I helped him sort out why his website wasn't updating when he put the files into filezilla, I helped him put pictures into his site, and all the while I was working on my lego block model. It was kind of a pain to put the bottom circles into position, but I got it to work.

Today we did the Candy-Corn on an 8 1/2" by 11" Paper Wednesday Challenge. The challenge was to estamate how many candy corns could fit on an 8 1/12" by 11" peice of paper without overlapping each other. I was the judge of the challenge, again, and I ran around the class recording the team's answers (I will have a link to the team's final answers and my WC form below). The winner of the challenge recieved a bag of cany corn to enjoy. When I could, I would work on my lego block, but I didn't get much done in the time I had.

Today we continued our lego sketchup models. We also talked about the results of the candy corn wednesday challenge yesterday and how the winning team got to their answer. I came to the conclusion that my lego block will take a VERY long time. Making all of the faces intersect correctly is very annoying. Other than that it was a normal day and nothing much went on.

Today we listened to the teams of invention challenge and gave our input, just like last week. I multitasked and I listened to the presenters while I worked on my lego block. Finally, I finished it and it looks really good. As you can see (Josh K), it really is nothing less than perfection. I believe I won that challenge by a mile. So sit back, relax, and relesh in the awesome that is the Lego block.

Today we started work on a sketchup model of a bike battery. Today I mainly tryed to figure out how to make rounded corners on a three dimesional cube. It was annoying, but I figured it out. What I had to do was that I had to take my model, cut it into 8 symmetrical pieces, make it 16 times as large, use the follow me on the OUTTER perimeter, replicate to the original shape, clean it up, and finally shrink it back down.

Today we just continued our batteries and worked on our websites, I started on the top of my battery, but didn't get that far because it is such a complicated shape. Like always, I cut it in half and made only on piece that I would then replicate and mirror to make it the original thing.

Today we did the Post-It Note Wednesday Challenge and I, again, was the judge. Like last year, the goal was to make a brige that had the longest span made souly out of 15 notes. The teams functioned a lot like the teams from last year and the trends were all still there, the try-hards, the I don't care's, the last minute rushers, and the logical lancers. Everyone managed to complete their bridges in the class period, all except for Alvin of course (I will have a link to the final scores and a link to my wednesday challenge form below).

Today we did the usual stuff, wednesday challenge discussions, sketch ups. A group did their bridge presentation, I finished the Excel document for the wednesday challenge and showed the class the final standings (Kirk and David won by the way), and so on and so forth. Because I was working on the wednesday challenge stuff I didn't have much time to work on my battery model and tomorrow I will have to bum rush my website because it isn't updated, so that will be fun. I will just put a few pictures of my battery's current state and role with it.

Today we listened to the JPL teams update on their current position in the Invention challenge. I was half listening because I was bum rushing my website so that it would be done on time. Sadly, I didn't finish my site, so I will have to go home and finish it and email it to Neato when it is done, which is what I am doing right now. since I didn't finish my sketchup model I will put a few pictures of the incomplete model below. I hope my site will still count if I email it to him and not have it on filezilla, but we will see.

Today we started the Lego Sketch-Build Wednesday Challenge that is kind of like the E Wednesday Challenge from last year. The goal is to make the best lego contraption out of 30 lego blocks, and then have that contraption passed onto another group in another period to be modeled in sketchup. I was a judge again but, thankfully, I wasn't the only judge, David was also a judge (As usual, I will have links to the scores and my WC form below). We basically ran around all day and took pictures, passed out lego blocks, collected the contraptions, and all that stuff. At the very beginning of class, I was able to do a little work on my battery, but I don't think that I will get much done on it this week.

Today we continued the Lego Sketch-Build Wednesday Challenge, but we had a little help from the judges of 4th period. They came up with a very good metric that will make judging the teams very easy. It works like this: The score is divided in to 5 sections, color, shape, complexity, specificity, and dimensions. Color, shape, and complexity relate to the physical contraption while specificity and dimensions relate to the sketchup model. Color dictates the variety of colors that the contraption has, shape dictates the variety of different shaped part the contraptoin contains, and complexity dictates the level of complexity that the contraption is built with. Specificity dictates the level of accuracy that each individual part in the sketchup was made to, and dimensions dictates the how exact the sketchup model is to the real thing. Color and shape are both 1/8th of the total grade and complexity, specificity, and dimensions are each 1/4th of the total grade. Each section is graded on a scale from 1 to 10, the resulting number picked is then multiplied by the percentage of that section, so say a group gets an 8 in complexity, the resulting number after multiplication would be 2 since complexity is 25% of the overall grade. After all of the categories are graded and calculated, the final grade adds up to a number on a scale of 1 to 10 and from those numbers, a winner can be named. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't.

Today I am due to the Chemistry field trip to the Bodies Exhibit.

Today we made a sketchup model of the door handle of the front and side counters. Knowing that this would take me about 2 minutes, I ignored the model, but I'll put a picture of one in any ways. Instead, I talked to David about what happened on friday, and he said that a few of the lego sketchup models were in the correct shared folder. When I checked, there were no models, but by the end of the period, we had 3. For the rest of the period I just worked on my battery because I really wanted to get that thing done, it irks me that it is taking my so long to complete.

Today was... interesting... and when I mean interesting I mean that I'm pretty sure my computer has a virus on it. Basically what happened was that Neato wasn't here today, so we could work on the wednesday challenge models and our forms. At the beginning of the period I went and got my laptop and when I turned it on, a screen I had never seen before that looked like something like this:

appeared on my screen the second I turned it on. It said that the battery was known to run down quickly and to be aware that it looses a charge fast. After that, I was able to log in and do a few things before a suspicious anti-virus window popped up and said that my computer had something called "not_a_virus".somethin or other. I followed it's instructions and ran the scan, but the progress bar never moved beyond 0%, it just sat there and did nothing. Then Tylor walked over and I told him what was going on and he said that it was most definitely a virus. He then restarted the computer, but he said that he wasn't able to get the computer into safe mode and that, in short, my computer was screwed. So now I don't have a computer and all of my stuff is gone, again. But other than that, I pretty much did nothing the whole class because I had no computer to work on and no sketchup to complete.

Today I arrived at the robotics room at lunch and, what'da-ya-know, computer 20 was missing and Neato tells me that it is dead. A sad thing, but luckily I had saved the WC scores to my flash drive and that they didn't disappear with my sketchups, so I could still work on them during the class time. Today we also did the Neato Palm Tree Wednesday Challenge, a challenge in which I did not participate in because I was running around grabbing lego sketchup models and this challenge didn't require a student judge, so I am not going to put in a link to a wednesday challenge form. In the end, today went slow and it was uneventful.

Today we finished up yesterday's wednesday challenge presentations and I got the last of the lego sketchup models. I opened up Tylor's model on Greg's laptop because Tylor's model was made in sketchup 2014 which is on Greg's laptop. The one problem was that Tylor's construction that he had to model had been taken apart and built into something different. I found a picture of the original build and Tylor and I put it back together as accurately as possible, then I judged that. Tylor got pretty mad and I wouldn't blame him, but he ended up getting third overall, so that's good. My computer is still dead, but I'm still hoping that Mr. Saw can revive it and get it working again, but the fear still lingers.

Today... my computer is alive! Mr. Saw got it working and all my stuff was still there! All of my sketchups, my website, everything! I immediately made a backup of everything on BOTH of my flashdrives and all was well with a world! At the start of the class, I showed the class the final scores of the Lego Sketch-Build Wednesday Challenge and Rhys and Josh K won, Kirk and Leo got second, and Tylor and Kevin F got third. Ayden and Danny tied for fourth with Wesley and Tim, Josh B and Jason came in fifth, Trey and Nick in sixth, and finally, Alvin and Forrest in seventh. Besides that, the JPL guys each did their practice runs in class because the regional competition is tomorrow and they need their practice.

Today we were shown our grades from the last 2 week grading period and we were to make a sketchup model of the door of the cabinet and add it to our handle model from last week. Again, to me, it was a simple task, so I ignored it and worked on my battery model. I decided that I was going to go all-out and make every little detail of the battery, so I mainly worked on the connecting points of the battery. I don't know if I'm getting in over my head with this, but it's fun and that is all that matters. I worked on the battery until the end of the period and I created the items shown below. I know they're not to scale and they look bad, but just wait and it will look much better in the future.

Today we started the class off with a bridge presentation by Alvin, Neato told me that I needed to show my CAD from yesterday so that the class could see the steps I took in making the thing with Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y. So I worked on that while Alvin was presenting. I felt like showing my model in a fancy way this time, so enjoy! (In all seriousness I was just really bored so.....yeah.)

Today we did the Past First Robotics Competition Wednesday Challenge where we watched an old First video and were to make a design for a bot that would have participated in that event. I partnered with Nick and we decided that we would go with a simple bot that would roam around until the end of the match where it would deploy a minibot to climb the pole (the CAD will show our design more clearly). The reason we decided to focus on the minibot because we assumed that our team mates would make bots that scored points, and the final 30 points is a lot of points, a game changing amount. Just look at the CAD, it will explain it well, just make sure its in full screen, its hard to see the text otherwise.)

Today we listened to the JPL invention challenge group the didn't make it to the finals. They told their entire story, from start to finish, and what happened to them in the end. The whole time they were talking I was working on the sketchup model for the wednesday challenge, since it was complex and imaginative. Since I can multitask, I listened and CADed at the same, the powers of A-D-D.

Today Neato wasn't here and we didn't watch a mythbusters episode, so I made significant headway in my wednesday challenge CAD and finished it. The day was slow and the mood was dull, but all in all it was a very productive day. Also, the hour that I was CADing felt like mere minutes, I guess I was just having fun with it, which is good, reduced my stress levels too.

Today Nick and I, along with the other wednesday challenge groups, presented our ideas to the class. Nick and I won because of our design and, of course, the CAD. It was fun to actually participate in a wednesday challenge because I had been that judge so many times before that I couldn't remember that last one I actually did properly. After that, Neato informed us that our final was going to be given to us tomorrow and that the winning team would get an A for the semester. Everyone got all excited per-the-norm and then Neato told us that we were going to get a partner and CAD an object in the room to then be put in one big CAD of the whole room, put together by none other than me. I made a spreadsheet of the pairs and got a few of them down, but basically the rest of the class time we talked and had fun.

Tuesday, 12/9/14, Day 73:

Crota has Returned...

Besides that, today we were told that our final wednesday challenge was as follows: Make a suspension bridge out of recyclable items that can transport a billiard ball from one side of it to the other without breaking. The allowed materials are any plastic recyclable container, newspaper, string, cardboard, and wood glue as the only adhesive. The bridge with the longest span wins. There are two teams, a design team, the ones that think of their bridge, and a build team, another team that will build your bridge. We will have Tuesday-Thursday to design and make a PowerPoint of our bridge, and Friday and Monday to build another team's bridge. I was grouped with Tylor and Trey and, when told of the challenge, immediately came up with an idea and started CADing it. We went with my idea and I started CADing like a mad man. I was cut off by the bell, but I think that out design will work, but it isn't done yet, so the picture will have to wait until later.

Today we continued our final wednesday challenge and I continued our design. It turns out that I had engineered our bridge so well in the short time I had thought about it that it wasn't even a suspension bridge and there was no way in hell that it was going to fall over. I had to modify our design so that it was a suspension bridge using newspaper, but the core parts were still there (CAD shown below). The tilted boxes are there so that the whole thing wouldn't topple over with the littlest weight and the bottles of sand are there to stabilize the whole thing. Newspaper sits in a net of strings, in turn making the bridge suspended, and the whole "road" it tilted a little to get the ball rolling. The whole thing, from end to end, is about nine feet. Its pretty long, so we can only hope that Conner gets ours and we don't get a bad one.

Today we continued the challenge and we were told that today was the last day to design and make the PowerPoint. Tylor didn't work on the PowerPoint last night because he pulled an all-nighter on homework, understandable, but he worked on it during the class period. I realized that we didn't put an estimation of our length in the PowerPoint, but I'm sure that our CAD fully makes up for that, I hope. But for the mean time, all we can do is hope that we get a good bridge and our bridge falls into good hands *cough*-*cough*--Conner--*cough*-*cough*. Sorry, I don't know where that came from, it was the..uh..air-freshener, just ignore that.

Today we received our partner group's bridge design linked below, at first, we thought that the idea was stupid and wouldn't work, only knowing that the span was 30" when ours was 9 feet. But, as we started building it, we realized that it wasn't that bad after all. Lucky for us, the design contained only drawings, so we could modify the design a little bit to make it better. Over the weekend I am going to get a 2 liter soda bottle and Tylor will also so that we can finish the bridge next week. But other than that, Tylor got into a box and just layed there while we picked him up via the box and moved him around, so just a normal day in the robotics room.

Today we continued work on our Final in class. Today was the last time we could work on our bridge in class, but Neato allowed us to take home our bridges to work on them, so that's good, now back to the bridge. First off, the design wasn't a suspension bridge, meaning that if the strings were cut, the bridge would stay up and not fall down, so we fixed that by simply cutting the bridge into three parts with the larger center one suspended in the air with strings. We didn't finish our bridge and Trey wasn't here, so I am going to take home the bridge to work on it after school, but when it's done, the fun part is going to be getting it back to school in one piece.

Today we finished up our final and we didn't win. The soul reason for that was that Neato didn't cut the master string, but he cut a random branch off string. So that sucks, but alas it was fun to do. Down below is a photo of our final bridge and a link to the letter we wrote to the designers. INPORTANT UPDATE: Our design in period 4 won with a span of 8 feet and 6 inches! Second place only got 7 inches! BEND TO THE POWER OF THE CAD! In all seriousness, I really douted our partner group's ability to build a 9 foot bridge, but I guess I was wrong. Good job peoples! (The bottom picture is our built design)