Category: Software

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SumoBots

Today the Sumobots finally did some battle against each other. There were several entries from our student teams, which included names such as Bozo Bot, Mama Tipson, Connoli, Open-Faced Sandwich, Reverse Sandwich, and Kendo(Revived). Many of the bots were not as fully developed as the students wanted, but they are learning the difficulties of creating a fully autonomous robot from scratch. My favorite bot had to be Kendo(Revived) which is far and away the most advanced bot of the group. It features a plasma and waterjet steel scraper and jaw to remove combatants from its path, and is build on a solid foundation with triple traction wheels and custom circuit board. Additionally, the students were adding small magnets to get the bot to the heaviest allowable weight for combat. We had a lot of fun watching the robots today, and will probably have another day of bouts in the next few weeks, which will allow students to update their robots and make them better.

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Robotics Club

I completely forgot to post about the Robotics Club, which Mr. Christy and myself are the moderators. To be fair, Mr. Christy spends much more time with the students, often staying until 8 or 9pm with them during the buildup to a recent contest. This year, the team participated in the MATE ROV competition, which is an underwater rover robot event. The event was at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on the Cape, and we were there early in the morning. The contest was a little disorganized, and the start time was quite delayed. But that gave our team plenty of time to prepare and organize, since this was our first time at the event. We had two stints in the water with the robot, and the team learned a great deal from the day. Fortunately, we won! Out of the 4 scoring categories, we took 3 of them. We were completely surprised, but very happy for our students.

This means the team will now compete in the international event held in Long Beach, California. Mr. Christy has spent a lot of energy working on corporate sponsorship, and at this time we have raised nearly $20,000 to get the team to California, as well as created ongoing sponsorships for years to come. It’s been a great success, and no matter what happens in Long Beach, the team is going to get better and better each year. Unfortunately, neither myself or Mr. Christy will be able to attend the event in California, so a couple of parent chaperones will go with our team. I’ve posted a few photos below of the team and the rover. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get any good video of the rover underwater!

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Pi Radio March Update

A quick update on the Pi Radio, since it has been a few weeks when it was last mentioned. It works, however, still waiting on the code to get it to function when power is applied, rather than having to SSH into the Pi and manually start the code. My co-teacher is helping with this, so once he is able to make it work, we should be able to package everything up and finalize everything. For now, here are some photos of the volume and tuning knobs wired to the Pi.

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LED Acrylic Light Box

Wanted to showcase a few projects that are happening in the shop right now. The first is from one of our sophomores, Shubh P ’24, who took the design on on his LED Light Box to another level. Shubh has put a lot of attention to detail in his project from CAD to circuitry. He introduced several types of circuitry components to the design, which include potentiometers as dials, 7 segment display, and pushbutton switches. In addition, he utilized different sized wood in his CAD model to create patterns within the framework of the structure of the box. It really turned out well. Unfortunately, when taking photos of it today, there was a minor glitch in the coding, so he is going to fix the issue and I will post some more photos below.

In addition to the light box, Prince A ’23 is working on updating an older project from a previous student, a bluetooth speaker. The circuitry for the project is being modernized, as is the speaker box. Below you can see some test fitting of speakers in cardboard.

And lastly, Clark B ’23 and Daniel R ’22 are working on getting our traffic light fully functioning. Clark has been making circuit boards on our Bantam Tools mill and writing code to make the light work in unison with the school’s bell system. You can see his array of relays below in blue. Daniel has designed a connector to fit the traffic light on an old tv stand. We decided to print the connector out of a carbon fiber filament for strength, and after some trial and error, we are pretty happy with the final result. You can see it below in black.

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Red Light, Green Light

Junior student Clark B has been working on circuitry to control an actual Stop Light that was donated to the shop a few years ago. Many students had thought about working on a project with the Stop Light, but nobody truly took on the project as Clark has done. So far he has written a program for an Arduino that will allow the light to turn on to reflect the daily class schedule. Green light for when we are in class time, yellow for 5 minutes before the bell, and red for time between classes. Along with his Arduino, he has a relay to control the AC voltage that turns on the light.

Additionally, we repurposed an old rolling television stand that was being dumped in the trash. The wheels were broken so we drilled new holes in the steel frame, tapped the holes for M10 bolts, and used some new casters we had in our storage room. To connect the light to the stand, another student, Senior Daniel R, 3D modeled and printed a connecting element that rests on the poles of the TV stand, and allows the Stop Light to slip onto the top of the connector. It’s coming together very well at the moment, and just a little more wiring and finalizing the coding should complete the project. Will post again when completed. For now, some photos below.