We are Champions...Continuation

Now after reading we are champions( which you probably should if you haven't) you may have questions like what was our project, how did we win, and what missions did we do.

Let us answer these.

1. What was our project?

Our project was on lawn fires.  We had a teammate that had experienced a lawn fire a few summers ago but is now perfectly fine. ( For security and personnel space we will not revel what happened) We did not want others to feel what he/she has felt so we created Fire DNR. In Fire DNR the DNR stands for detection, for d, notification, for n, and remediation, for r. For those who don't know what remediation means it means to solve to the problem(s).

For D, we used a blink camera which takes 5 second videos and splits it into 5 images when motion is detected. Then the images are ready to be uploaded to the cloud where it will be then downloaded to the computer and arduino.  it will then compare the images with the fire models. This is where N comes in if there is a fire it will notify the owner and say there's a fire. Then for R, the owner has a choice to either call 911 or turn on their sprinklers.

2. What missions did we do?

We did quit a lot of missions to reach our 405 point mark. We did the crane the swing traffic jam the bridge and the apartment push. Currently we are doing the elevator and others to exceed 405 and have a chance at world.

3. How did we win?

Basically we were first in robotics but weren't in project. The thing that put us in first was  the fact that another team that we helped told the judge that thanks to Teckduckies(us) their robot was able to go in a strait line.

For more questions fell free to  ask them in the comments and we'll get to you as fast as we can.

We are the Champions!

We started off our day by going into Harmony Public School, where our FLL Qualifier was held. We found our pit area and got everything ready for our day. We didn't do as well in our practice, but in our first round we scored 405 points and won the robot competition. We did out Core Values, Robotics, and Project judging and the judges said we did really well. We did our second and third round, which weren't as good. We played outside a little while waiting for our scores. We won the robot run award, but we waited till the very last award, where our judged announced, "2... 0... 0... 3... 4!" We turned out 1st place champions! We were really excited! We went to Amy's Ice-cream for some fun and we played around and had more excitement! It was a good day.

Currently, we are working really hard to improve and win the regionals in March.

Final cheer

Hey guys!

It’s been quite a while since you’ve heard from us, but we have been working hard on our missions. We recently just finalized the cheer for our competition date while our robots run. Here it is:

“Flap with it
Create
Clap with it
Motivate
Turn around
Innovate
Go Tech Duckies!”

Robotics

Me and RK made an attachment that picks up the traffic jam. The traffic jam is a challenge where you are supposed to lift the traffic jam, which is a flat lego plate with fake lego cars, both of the sides have a handle to lift it with your attachment. To make this attachment we had to think about how we want to do this. The first thing we thought was for the robot to come right next to the traffic jam and have the robots motor to pick it up, but that idea was a little complicated, so we decided that we should push it up from under the traffic jam. We first used three long beams and then we programmed it to push the traffic jam up and it worked! We went to my teammate’s house we got pieces that are so thin that it can slide under the traffic jam to lift it. We kept coding until we found the right code that when the robot went straight the thin piece that was part of our attachment slid under the traffic jam and picked it up and keep it that way. This was a really fun challenge and we did it!

T-Shirts and Caps

Today, we finished finalizing the T-Shirts and Caps we will be wearing. We love them! We also had a good discussion on lawn fires and how to notify the owner. Here's my research.

Device – Device = Zigbee

Device – App or Hub = WIFI

Smartthings is a hub where different devices will send data to through the Wi-Fi network, and into the hub. The hub is usually connected straight to the router, and the hub will send simple data to an app. We can use this for our fire sensors.

Zigbee is a protocol which helps devices talk or communicate to other devices and creates the IoT network. The module is the chip which connects the two devices.

For example, if you want to set a morning bulb light mood, the Zigbee module is built into all the bulbs and the bulbs will communicate to each other to set the perfect warm light for your morning.

We can set these two up so that in a lawn fire, first the Zigbee network sends the message to the sprinkler, and the sprinklers immediately turn on. Then, the WIFI network will send the warning to the application, and the user can take control. This way the lawn is already protected and it will stop burning further.

Progress

Over the past week, we have been working on robots. We also met up to finish the core values poster. We are working hard and are on track to finish soon!

Week 12

Our teammates ,Shreyan and Rithwik went to the city shaper kick off meeting on August 1st  and Shreyan shared the updates with the team. We found out that the first round of FLL  is in December and the second round is in January.

We went over the city shaper kick of video and discussed about the different cities and structures in the video  ,roles of the people involved in building a city and problems with the building or public space in our community.

We each wrote down the pros and cons of increasing population such as Resources, Space, entertainment and traffic.

One of my teammates went to Zadar ,Croatian city and shared that the city made a water origin that uses wind and water to make music and there is a dance floor that is solar powered so it glows at night.

Field Trip: Mr. William Hodge

Today we took a field trip to an architect, Mr. William Hodge from Ochona, architecture firm.

We learned all about sustainable houses and structures.

For example, how different materials help to resist natural disasters.

It was a fun an informative session, and we had a lot of questions!

On our Way!

It's already August, and the missions have been released.

We are meeting every day to discuss robotics and both robots are fully working.

We also built the buildings, trees, and other figures for the missions.

We are also planning a trip to Austin Energy to learn how energy gets to our home. We can't wait to learn!

At the pool party we swam and played in the pool by RN

One day me and my team went to one of our team mates house. We swam in the pool and played all sorts of games such a ''fetch''. Someone threw a ''stick'' into the pool and everyone else dove at the stick. The stick sinks so we have to dive to the bottom of the pool. We also played a game that when a person sits on a something that floats in the pool and everyone else goes underneath the water and tries to flip the thing that floats over. we also had juice , snacks, candy . We also had nice fresh corn and burgers.


By RN

How I do my role as Team Lead

         The Team Lead or Scrum Master ,in this case,  gives out homework every week to everyone on this team. Also I put the homework on a website called Trello which puts them into cards that can be moved from them to a done list. We put it on Trello so that it is easier to keep track of and we can make sure that everyone does their work. While I do this I also have to do the homework that is given to me  by the coaches. Even while I am on vacation I must still be communicating a little with my teammates and doing a little bit of homework.

                                                                        Trello


      As seen in the photo above, all of the finished cards or homework is in the done list. That means that they are all done and more homework can be given to them. This is how I do my role as a  Team Lead or Scrum Master.
     

Efficient Ways To Generate Energy

In this post, I will explain some efficient ways to generate energy.

First of all, we can put a windmill and solar panels on top of all the houses, so the houses can have almost all the power they need, and we won't have to send as much energy to the houses. 

We place solar panels on the streetlights so they can charge up in the day and shine bright in the night.

All buildings will be required to have solar panels, and we will only send about 20% of the energy needed for full functionality for the buildings. This will make all the buildings operate mostly under renewable energy.

Here as some efficient ways to generate energy.

Week 10

In week 10's meeting. We discussed some things, and are shown below.

We first worked on the logo and finalized it for everyone. It looked great!

For FLL, we need to show what we know about core values. We chose to make a presentation on how we know about core values and assigned a core value to everyone. We talked about it and made sure that everyone knew how to complete their part. 

Next, we talked about air pollution. We thought of these ideas:

• We should fine tobacco users for polluting their body and the city where they live.
• We can use electro-magnetic cars to get rid of car pollution.

We also thought about energy, and more importantly, windmills.

• Windmills on houses
• Floating Windmills

Finally, food. We thought of making various raised vegetable gardens so people can grow their own food. Then, we watched the official First Rise 2019-2020 video revealing City Shaper, our project research.

That's all for week 10!

Week 9

In week 9, we had a two-hour meeting, then a fun pool party. We got a lot done, and here is a brief summary.

We started off with designing our logo, and we all had two similar icons: ducks and gears.

The gear represents '"Tech" as the duck represents "Duckies". This forms our team name.

When we finished reviewing our logo, we moved on to some programming.

The girls learned about the robot and the boys learned and explored programming.

After this, we ran out of time and called it to an end. We finished off with a fun pool party!

Week 8!

We are already at week 8, and we are getting deep into the topic.

We spent most of our time working on how we would design our city. Here are some key points.

Energy:

If we decide to build our city near the ocean, then we can gather power from:

Solar Panels
Windmills - Seabreeze
Tides
The heat of the ocean

And, we can establish a rule in our government so that all buildings and houses must operate with solar power and renewable fuel.

Water:

We must replenish water bodies and ecosystems
We can reduce the amount of water and energy used
And there are three r's for water, just like for keeping our earth clean:
Reuse, Recover and Recycle

We also need to have a water-sensitive urban design
We need to have water regeneration, like how in space, astronauts drink purified pee

There are also different types of water:

Black Water: the water from the toilet, can't be recycled
Gray Water: everything else which can be regenerated

We also want to keep our city clean and safe, so we thought of these ideas:

Every product could have a computer chip or tag with the buyer's name on it, so if the product got littered, the police could scan the chip and find the litterer.

We can get everyone to sign in when they go to the beach, so when nighttime comes, they can call everyone who signed in to help clean up the beach.

That's what we brainstormed for week 8!

How I Do My Role As A Finance Manager

The finance manager calculates and keeps track of all the total income and expenses. In other words, I keep track of all the money coming in and going out of the team. Finance is important because we need to know how much money we have to pay for what we need. The order manager and the coaches place orders and I give them the money to pay for the orders. We keep track of the money this way so everybody is happy, and does not think it’s unfair.

I also post income and expenses (as seen in the pictures above). If we need money, we send emails to our team so everyone can pitch in. That is how I do my job as the finance manager.

My Alaska Trip

My family and I went to Alaska in the first week of June. In Alaska, we visited a few cities: Seward, Whittier, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. We also camped with an RV in the heart of Denali National Park.

We flew from Austin to Fairbanks via SFO and Seattle on Alaska Airlines. When we reached  Fairbanks, we didn't get our suitcase in the baggage claim! My parents had to file a claim with the Airlines personnel. Luckily they called us back before we left for Anchorage with the rental car, saying they will deliver our suitcase to Anchorage. In  Anchorage, we rested one night in an Airbnb. Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska,  it's a major business center and the biggest seaplane base in the world.

The next morning we drove to Whittier. In Whittier, we went on a 26 Glacier cruise in Prince William Sound in Chugach National Forest. A tunnel in Whittier is the longest shared-rail, vehicle tunnel in North America. It takes 7 minutes to drive through that tunnel! Fewer than 300 people live in Whittier and they all live in one 14 story building called The Begich Tower. lunch was served on the cruise and I also earned my Junior Ranger Badge for Chugach National Forest. I was super excited when I saw humpback whales, sea otters, sea lions, mountain sheep, black bears, and glaciers calving ( breaking apart and falling into the ocean) on the cruise.

Then we drove to Seward where we stayed in a WWII Quonset hut for 2 nights. It still looked pretty nice even though it was built in WWII. In Seward, most of the buildings are built around the mountain ranges because it is famous for its scenery. In Seward, we went to a place where people train Iditarod dogs and we actually got to ride them. We also visited Exit Glacier where I earned my Kenai Fjords National Park Badge.

Later we drove to Anchorage where we rented an RV from Great Alaskan Holidays and drove to Matanuska Glacier where we wore crampons and helmets and hiked up the glacier ice falls.

Next, we drove to Denali National Park and camped there for 3  nights in Teklanika campground. We hiked a lot in Denali. We saw grizzly bears, black bears, Dall Sheep, Red fox, moose, caribou, we also saw the beautiful Denali mountain. The park has 6.6 million acres where they preserve wildlife. The Eilson visitor center is built on the mountain so there is more view of the tundra than building. It's built smaller so it uses less material. It uses less fossil fuel and more sustainable energy because it uses solar panels. I also earned a Junior Ranger badge here.

 Finally, we drove to Fairbanks and went to this 800-mile long pipeline all the way through Alaska, called the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) and gives petroleum to all of North America. Then we went to the airport and flew back home.

Week 7

This week, for our core values, we did a robotics crossword, but, with a twist.

We were each given an identical crossword puzzle, and our goal was to find as many of the 24 words in the puzzle. We could communicate and work on our own, but the point of the activity was teamwork.

We found every word as a team except one word. Our coach gave us obvious feedback: double check your work! However, we did really well and got it done nicely.

Afterward, another coach presented us with the same two robot designs we agreed to build in our previous meetings: the Box Robot 3 and the SUV robot.

With the robots in front of us, we looked and each of the components and features of each robot. We saw some ways we could improve and how each robot was better and both worse than the other robot. We will build a final robot and try them out, make some changes, and make other improvements later.

We also established some guidelines for dealing with the pieces, like when building, we have to be careful to keep the pieces organized.

Finally, we watched a TED talk about how cities are solving problems efficiently, and uniquely, and also discussed what we learned in the video.

You can find the link here.

That's all for week 7!

Week 6 - Our Meeting

We started off our sixth meeting with a fun jigsaw puzzle and we solved it in 21 minutes. Refer to the Core Values of Week 6 blog post to learn more.

Next, we had a teammate who came back from Alaska! We loved Alaska and learned so much more about this state. Again, refer to the Alaska post to learn more!

After this, we began to sort LEGO pieces into containers so it would we easy to find each piece when building. Our coaches taught us what each piece is called, how it works, and how can it be used in our robots and attachments.

There wasn't too much this meeting, but we learned a lot!

Core Values of Week 6

Today, we did a fun core values activity. It was solving a jigsaw puzzle our coach gave us, and we tried to solve it as fast as we could.

We worked hard, and we got it done in 21 minutes!

When we finished, we found out what we could've done better:

Be more organized: we had pieces all over the place, so it was hard to understand what pieces we need and what we have already figured out.

Stop Yelling: We yelled a lot! We were pretty loud, and it gave us no help. Each conversation was really important, and screaming never gets points across.

Some things we did do well were:

Split up: we naturally divided up into three groups, creating a separate part of the puzzle, and connecting at the end.

Motivation: We stayed motivated and didn't give up.

We needed to learn a lot from this because this is coming back in a few weeks!

Active Listening

Active listening is when you pay attention to the speaker and you pay attention to what is being unsaid or partially said.

Here are eight core principles:

1. Stop Talking: Don't talk
2. Prepare Yourself to Listen: Relax
3. Put the Speaker at Ease: Help the speaker be free to say anything
4. Remove Distractions: Pay attention to what is being said
5. Empathize: Try to understand the speaker's point of view
6. Be Patient: Just because there is a long pause doesn't mean you talk
7. Listen for Ideas; Not just Words: Figure out the whole picture, not just little pieces

Active listening is when you focus on what the speaker is saying and you show signs/keys of listening to the speaker for the speaker to understand that you are listening, such as:

• Smiling: A small smile can tell the speaker that you are listening and the speaker will become confident on what he/she may be saying

• Making eye-contact: Looking at the speaker will tell the speaker that you are listening and not getting distracted

• Posture: When you sit up straight you tell the speaker that you are listening and not fidgeting and getting distracted

"Active listening is a skill that can be acquired and developed with practice. However, active listening can be difficult to master and will, therefore, take time and patience to develop."

Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/active-listening.html

Week 5 - Austin's Issues

Today, we discussed the issues of Austin, looked at some robot designs, and find out how to express our ideas with physical parts easily and accurately.

We talked about some issues about our home city, Austin, and what we can do to improve our city.

We also talked about the robot design as well. We were thinking about the SUV competition box robot, but there were some major flaws in this box robot.

The SUV can't turn well because it's so big, and the attachments take a lot of time and parts to make, causing a very costly robot design. 

On the other hand, box robots in general are stable and can hold a heavy load, and the robot can run along the side of the walls of the board, providing guidance.

We took some time to make a brief structure, but we realized that it's hard to discuss our thoughts when dealing with physical parts.

The solution was to break up the project into different parts, then assign each person to a part, so nobody has to communicate when building the robot.

We will post a table with all of our pros and cons about the robots we suggested. For now, we will build the box robot 3 and try out the SUV box robot.

The Topic

Our FLL topic was "City Shaper" and most of us were confused, so we decided to break our problem into small pieces.

We identified the questions we need to answer to design our city:

1. How do we get water into the city?
2. How do we farm and obtain food for the citizens?
3. Where do we place different buildings?
4. Where should we construct the city?
5. What points of interest should we include to attract people?
6. How do we conserve city space?
7. How do we protect houses based on the climate?
8. How do we educate the kids in our city?
9. How can we create job openings?

We also got many things a city needs and things we can add to it:

Transportation:                                                                                              Lifestyle:
Bikes                                                                                                             Gyms
Magnetic-powered cars                                                                                 Schooling
Air tubes that suck you up
Golf carts                                                                                                       Energy:
Airports                                                                                                          Solar Power
                                                                                                                       Wind Power
Business and Food:
Shopping Places
Malls
Groceries
Warehouses
Office Buildings

Housing:
Apartments
Houses
Hotels

Socializing:
Parks
Child Friendly Places
Entertainment
Pools

This will help us with our design in the future!

Team Roles

After the team name was decided, it was time to give out roles.
FLL is not only a project, but a journey. 
Throughout FLL we learn lots of skills that we can use in our entire life. 

We decided to give each member of our team ownerships of tasks and complete it. 

The team roles and what they do are the following:

Finance - Treasurer.

Order manger - Orders parts and boards etc.

Communication and coordinator- Communication towards everything including parties etc. and will send all emails.

Social media and Website - Blogging plus website maker, and keeping viewers updated as well.

Programming / GitHub -  Lead not only person doing programming, as everyone will get a chance to program.

Team Lead - What did everyone do today and will give out tasks to each member.

LEGO head designer - Attachment and body lead and he/she will also build, however, everyone will be able to build. He/she gets to approve the final Robot.

Project Lead - Will decide on research tasks and board.

We will keep you posted as we each transition into our new roles.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Tech Duckies blog!

On this blog, you can follow our adventure through FLL.

You may be wondering, "Why did we choose this name?"

Before we even thought of Tech Duckies, we chose to write a couple names down: 

Engigeers
Next Gen
Ritz
Gummy
King Cookie
LME Skyscrapers
Tech
Duckies

Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies

Eventually, we got to the point where 2 people wanted Team Tech, where as 5 people wanted Team Duckies. We mashed them together because everyone agreed to the name, and voila! Our team was born.

We hope you enjoy watching our team through FLL grow and thrive.