First Tech Challenge 2011

Hi guys! The First Tech Challenge is coming to Singapore and the briefing was held at the Singapore Science Center today. I think that this is an interesting competition that allows you to advance your skills from just building Lego robots in competitions such as NJRC as well as the lower level FLL. The skills shift from using basic building blocks in Lego to metal parts in the basic sets provided. However, CAD software is also provided and these parts are allowed in the rules. Programming can be done in Labview or RobotC and this will allow for an option between GUI coding and C. However, the starting cost is rather hefty at SGD800 for the first 50 kits purchased  and SGD1600 from there on. This does not include registration fees or the purchase of any parts or services such as CNC milling. Here are some pictures taken at the briefing:

 Picture of the demo robot with a blue team flag. The front attachment is used for collecting the batons and is driven by 2 wheels with an Omni-wheel in the front to allow dual axis of freedom. This runs on the NXT processor and has a wireless module, a multiplexer among other components. From the looks of it, the metal frame is assembled from the basic set.

 This is the general playing field although the presenter was quick to point out that there were some flaws in terms of dimensions and emphasized that Science Center will get it fixed quickly. There is a mountain in the middle flanked by 2 balancing boards. On the sides are ramps as well as the collection points of the batons. The four corners are where the robots start from and the 4 movable trolleys are also dumping points for the batons.

This is another sample robot with the red flag. Almost all modules look the same except that this robot is driven by tank tracks instead of an Omni wheel + 2 motors system. In this picture, it is perfectly balanced on the bridge and hence scores a point! 

 This is the same robot as the one in the first picture, just from a different angle.

 This would be the baton dispenser loaded with batons. Essentially, there are 3 types of batons, the multiplier, which is completely colored and is not in the picture (2 of them), the regular baton as well as the magnetic baton. The scoring for each one is different but I will not bore you out here. If you need any additional details, please visit the FTC site (the link is posted below)

 This will be the front view of the second demo robot. Apparently, the battery pack take 3 months to ship so the organizers have allowed this homemade battery pack. You might notice that the robot is not symmetrical- something that I place much emphasis on in my creations to ensure an even drive.

 This is the movable scoring trolley. The 4 containers at the edges are for regular batons while the middle one will only be scored if it holds the magnetic baton. However, this looks the same as the regular baton and teams would be required to find some way of differentiating them.

 This is the blue version of the baton dispenser.

 This is a closeup view of the mountain, ramp as well as the balance board.

 This would be the field viewed from another angle.

 There is an infrared beacon placed beneath the medium height baton dispenser which is located in the middle of each side of the field. The presenter recommended that teams use this during the autonomous period to locate the dispenser.

 This would be the standard NiMH battery pack on the left and the homemade battery pack on the right. As you might have noticed, the size is the same and the specifications has to be the same for the homemade pack to be used as a replacement.

 This are the batons. The fully colored ones are the multipliers which were missing in the picture above as well as the regular batons. The double striped batons are loaded onto the robots (5 of them) while the single ones are placed in the dispenser. Among them, there will be one magnetic baton.

This is the identifier flag which is to be placed on the robots and indicates which team it is on.

The rules are really quite complex so I am afraid I am not able to summarize them here. You could go to the FTC site at http://www.ftcsg.com.sg/. I hope that I have helped with some pictures to give you a better idea!
Thanks for visiting!

NJRC Entrepreneurship Award

Hey guys! Did a basic poster for NJRC that I thought I'd like to share. Some really simple typography at the bottom right corner is done with a mixture of angles, colors and font sizes for a dynamic feel. Also, there is a small school crest in the number 4 to give a more graphical representation of our team. However, although the lower half of the poster is very dynamic, we need to have some order to control the overall feel so I have placed the screen shots as well as the main details of our poster at the same angle. Information is also clearly separated with spaces between them as well as the different angles. To ensure that the information does not look disjointed, I have typed 4 in an extremely large font. This takes secondary focus from the word Raffles and Team which are in the most outstanding colors. This is done while maintaining the green black white gold colors of our school. Do not hesitate to email me should you need any specific help. Thanks!

Robocup/NJRC/RafflesRoboticsBlog

Hi guys!
Finally back on my blog! Just some updates to start off. Team Raffles has represented Singapore in Robocup International 2011 in the Lightweight A Secondary category. The journey was generally smooth sailing and ended with us attaining Individual as well as Superteam second. This is, by our record, the best showing from Singapore in this category. Throughout the round robin stages, we remained undefeated and had a goal ratio of 209 scored to 6 conceded. This included victories over Australia by a scoreline of 58-2 to games as close as 1-0 in the case of SPQR, a team from Rome. In the Individual finals, we met strong opponents in Luwan Senior High School. Winning that encounter 3-2, we proceeded into the finals facing Cenatax Light. Having some technical difficulties, we trailed 5-0 in the first half. However, we managed to get the second robot running in the second half and pulled back 2 goals. Unfortunately, that only gave us a 5-2 score line overall and allowed us to attain second position. In the Superteam semifinals, we were up against Iranian team Fast and Smart. We eased past this match with a score of 8-2 and allowed us to proceed to the finals However, we were up against Cenatax Light again the finals. This time, we lost 5-1 and hence clinched the second position.This is just the second time that our School is participating in the international round of Robocup and attaining 2 awards was indeed a surprise for us. However, we have found some areas of improvement and plan  to incorporate these details for the robot participating in the national round next year. Here is the robot:

This is our robot when viewed from the top.

This shows the processor as well as some sensors.

This is the font view of our robot.

 This is the driving base of our robot.

This is the picture of our robot with the ball.

 This is Team Raffles in Istanbul.

This is a picture of our robots with the trophy in Turkey. As you are able to see, the carpet has a lot of fluff on it and affected our robot performance as the wheels were unable to turn after the end of each half. The video of our robot can be found on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixrYPhvU8W4. For more pictures, visit my facebook profile!

Currently, I am working on the National Junior Robotics Competition (NJRC) . This competition selects the best teams to represent Singapore in the World Robotics Olympiad (WRO). The team did well in the presentation preliminary rounds, getting into the finals of the Best Mechanical Design Award as well as the Best Research Award. The challenge week starts on Thursday next week and we will hope to achieve a good result there. The awards for the presentation will also be announced during the prize presentation.

Another new project would be the Raffles Robotics blog. This will provide updates on competitions as well as general announcements and will be the means that our club reaches out to the public. The  link can be found here: rafflesrobotics.blogspot.com.

I will conclude this post and proceed on to work on the entrepreneurship as well as booth design awards for NJRC.

Thanks for visiting!

Global Light [Atmosphere]

Hey Guys,

Finally found the time to do a little Photoshop. Essentially, these 4 wallpapers above are all the same apart from the global light. Notice how the changing of 1 setting can affect the atmosphere of the entire art piece. Email me at kennethchow96@gmail.com to get the stock files. Also, this is a relatively simple piece to create and should be done in less than 15 minutes, a mere stencil layer placed on a standard mac wallpaper. However, it drastically improves the quality of the piece. Such tricks are simple but would take sometime to experiment with to get the desired effect. So here it is, done for your reference!

Thanks,

Kenneth

Class Shirt (Other Designs)

Hello!

I have decided to post the entire set of shirts for the poor people who don'e have an FB account. From looking at these designs, I had a sudden realization that I really love black and green! Anyway, back to my windows 8 project! Interestingly, my hit count has went up significantly to past 400 even though I have been too busy to update recently.

Thanks to all you guys who read my blog!

Kenneth

Nothing Much

Hey Guys!

Sorry about the long period of inactivity, Robocup seriously killed my braincells. What's more, we couldn't put up a fight only because of a short. Oh well, I guess we will be hoping to get into the international rounds now although there is a really low chance. I'm working on a lightweight Category A robot as shown above, done using a Medium Density Fibre (MDF) prototyping board as can be seen above (pictures coming up soon). Also, I am going to do a windows 8 mockup which will take quite a while. So in the mean time, this blog will not be updated very regularly.

Bye!

Kenneth

Class Shirt

Yet another attempt at the class shirt. Trying out typography this time and it seems to fill up more of the shirt than the previous designs. Also, the "C" is so much clearer now and the words on the whole are bigger. One annoying thing about the standard RGB and CMYK formats is the lack of gold. Now that I can't test the actual colour the printed shirt could look really different. Of course, I have to say that something this simple wouldn't actually require Photoshop but since it is the easiest software to use out there, I used it. Will be doing another design soon, so watch out!

FLL update: No confirmation from USA

Robocup update: Completed basic design, going down to Maxon Singapore tomorrow to source for motors.