MAGS Robotics Blog Site

Here is a problem solving game in which you control the robots to defend your canyon against the approaching army. Enjoy!

The “Men from Mags” team, consisting of Year 9 students Toby M. and Jordan I. recently completed in the RoboCup Junior State finals. The state finals where held at the ScienceWorks complex in Melbourne and the students completed against schools from all over Victoria.

The results of the preliminary round robin games were:

Game 1        Draw 0-0
Game 2        Loss 1-0 (they kicked one for the opposition)
Game 3        Win 2-1

From these games the team made it to the finals, where they were knocked out by the  eventual winners of the competition.

It was the first year that students from the school have completed in the competition and it is a huge effort to make it to state level. Congratulations to the students who were awarded medallions for runners up for RoboCup Junior State Finals. The boys will be presented with their medallions at the next school assembly.

Video of the RoboCup action below:

Last Friday the 7^th of August five students travelled to the discovery centre in Bendigo to compete in the Junior Robocup Soccer Competition. Students have been studying robotics as one of their middle school electives, with the Robocup being an extension. For the past couple of months students have spent every Monday after school for two hours each time refining their skills. The students build and program the NXT Robots using  Robolab software. This program includes having the robot search for a ball that emits Infra-Red light and programming light and magnetic sensors so the robot can determine where on the soccer field it is.

The Day started at 9:30am with a session of students refining their skills from the Victorian Robocup founders where they learned some valuable programming skills for future use. It was sort of frantic, with people having to try and add their newly learned programming skills and their older programs together to produce a robot that would be able to play a game of soccer by 1:00pm. M.A.G.S students competed against several other teams from schools in the Bendigo Region.

During Lunch students had an opportunity to have a look around the many exhibits Discovery Centre with the highlight being Jordan looking a little worse for wear after attempting the Vertical Slide.

Rory Perry, Ash Clarke and Ben Pearson’s team scored many goals throughout the tournament, but unfortunately most of these goals were for the opposition. Toby Martin and Jordan Ive’s team went through the competition undefeated but failed to score a goal but neither did the opposition. Toby and Jordan received an award at the end of the competition for the “Most Accurate” robot. Their program was one of the most advanced of all the programs seen on the day, and with a little more time and fine tuning, the founders said “The program could easily compete at state level”.

The students received some valuable experiences from the day and look forward to future participation in Robocup Competitions.

The students would like to thank Mrs. Tracey Pearson and Mr. Young for driving them to Bendigo and for their help and support throughout the day.

Footnote: Toby and Jordan are competing in the State Final in Melbourne on Friday 14 August.

Below is a video on a game, the video is quite dark due to the conditions for the infra red sensors to work correctly.

Want to learn more about Robotics, perhaps some more advanced information or maybe you just need to recap some concepts. Then the LEGOengineering website has a heaps of podcast for you to choose from. You we find them at : http://legoengineering.com/index.php?option=com_podcast&view=list&Itemid=114

ASIMO is a humanoid robot created by Honda Motor Company. Standing at 130 centimeters and weighing 54 kilograms, the robot resembles a small astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk or run on two feet at speeds up to 6 km/h. It is the current model in a line of eleven that began in 1986 with E0. Officially, the name is an acronym for “Advanced Step in Innovative MObility”. As of 2007, there are 46 ASIMO units in existence. Each one costs around 1 million Australian dollars.

To find out more about ASIMO, head to http://www.asimo.com.au/