ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

Wrap up of the last 4 missions for the teams still going. Objective: Pull the Ice Core out of the hole. For additional points, move it to Base. Point Worth: 20 points for pulling it out of the hole. 10 points for moving it back to Base. Mission Location: Center East, on the Reasearch Area. Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium - Hard Time Length Rating: 7/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: This precision-required mission is conveniently placed on the far end of the table. Also, veteran teams may notice this Ice Core is actually smaller than previous "rings" used before - this possibly makes it even more difficult to pick up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Objective: Move the Ice Buoy to the Research Area (Ice crater), so that it ends upright. Point Worth: 25 points. Mission Location: Starts in the North West corner (top right). Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium. Time Length Rating: 5/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: The Ice ...

This is another three-in-one mission review. Objective: Move each of the objects - insulation, bike, and computer - to the green grid area. Point Worth: 10 points apiece. Mission Location: Start somewhat scattered on the southern (bottom) half of the table; they need to be moved to the green grid area (the property around the house) Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy Time Length Rating: 3/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: Be careful of how small those things are, your robot might run over them! Also beware of the CO2 balls in the way. Richard

Objective: Move the money (yellow ball) to the research area (the top left corner) or the research area (bottom right corner) so it's not touching any of the mat outside it. Point Worth: 15 Mission Location: Ball starts near the house, somewhat in the top right corner. It needs to be move to the research area (top left corner) or the research area (bottom right corner). Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium Time Length Rating: 4/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: Watch out for the house! Also - is it just me, or does the yellow ball roll more freely than the gray ones? Richard

Objective: Move levee blocks to shore while not damaging currently standing levees. Point Worth: 5 points for each block touching red. 4 points for each block touching green. If the block touches both green and red, it counts for red, scoring 5 points. Mission Location: North west (top left). Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium Time Length Rating: 4/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: This challenge seems easy, though if you score or not may depend on other factors such as the wheel from the Test Levees or simply a slight overturn from the robot. Setup notes: 5 levees start in Base and 3 start at their positions on the shore centered in the outlines. Richard

Objective: Move 3 of a certain type of people to their respective areas; red/white citzens go to the pink grid area, blue/gray leaders touching the tall green mountain, and black/white scientists touching the research area. Point Worth: 10 points for each group of people (consisting of 3 people each). Mission Location: The pink grid area in the north-east, the tall green mountain on the south center side, and the research area inside the ice crater in the south-east corner. Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy Time Length Rating: 7/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: Another simple mission, but spread all across the board! This is another mission that can be simple strategized to save time and get points. Refer to setup to see how they start: http://firstlegoleague.org/community/fll/game.aspx and for more information. Richard

Objective: Activate the wheel-roller so that wheel rolls out freely, regardless if the levees are hit or missed. However, if the wheel is strategically blocked so as to not hit the levees, this mission will not score. Point Worth: 15 points. Mission Location: In front of Base, slightly to the right. Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy Time Length Rating: 1/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: A very simple mission to perform, but can get in the way of other missions. Look out! Richard

Objective: Point both arrows in the same direction, no matter which direction it is or which robots contributed to it. Point Worth: 40 points. Mission Location: North (top) wall, 11 inches away from the absolute center of the wall. The model's base should be centered across BOTH tables' walls, where they meet. Estimated Difficulty Level: Hard Time Length Rating: 9/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: This is possibly the most unique challenge this year. It is setup at the beginning of the match by the referee setting the arrows in a random direction, so that they are not pointing in the same way. Then, there is no gurantee that if you are able to complete the mission, the other team will not "uncomplete" it; in contrast, the other team may do the work for you. Also, the arrows are not particularly long, so that they overhang the wall very much. This will be quite the interesting mission to watch. Richard

While these are actually three missions, they all revolve around one object: the House. Elevate the House Objective: Have the house elevated (and the lever is pointing east) at the end of the match, when the referees score the table. Point Worth: 25 points. Mission Location: Between the north-west (top right) corner and the center of the table. Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium Time Length Rating: 6/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: This mission is a straightforward one. However, we have noticed that our house has some slop in the gears so that if you choose to elevate the house by rotating the lever, the robot will need to push fairly hard to fight all the slop. This may vary from table to table, but this is another simple thing to check before you run! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turn Off the Lights Objective: Have the house window showing black. This is most easily done by hitting the lever on the most western side (to the...

Objective: Move the Carbon Dioxide (gray balls) to the Underground Reservoir (outlined square in the top left corner) so that the balls are touching the protruding outline or the mat inside the outline; the ball cannot touch the mat outside of it. Point Worth: 5 points for each gray ball touching the Underground Reservoir. Mission Location: The Carbon Dioxide (gray balls) are scattered throughout the table, generally near the vertical center. The Underground Reservoir corner is in the top left corner. Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium Time Length Rating: 8/10 Unique Challenge Aspects: This mission looks like it will take quite a bit time since the balls are scattered all across the board. This is where good mission planning comes in; teams may be able to incorporate this mission with others to save time. Also, the outline protrudes from the table surface quite a bit, so the robot cannot simply and easily “just” push the ball in. While this method is possible, other methods, perh...

This segment is the first of many that will discuss each of the FLL Climate Connections missions in depth. You can read about them here: http://firstlegoleague.org/community/fll/game.aspx Sorry for the delay on this - school has been quite the time eater! Objective: Find a way – not necessarily using the lever – so that the large flood barrier/LEGO plate is upright and the red lever is down. Point Worth: 15 points Mission Location: Top/Center, slightly offset to the left - just enough to get in the way of the first Find Alignment arrow! Estimated Difficulty Level: 2/10 Time Length Rating: Low Unique Challenge Aspects: While this challenge may seem pretty straightforward and simple, there are variables that may affect its completion. The Dual-lock is not perfect, so that the two ends may be shoved together particularly tight at one competition table, causing barrier to be really stiff; at the next table, the two ends might spread apart on another table so that the barrier is parti...

Well, this FLL season is just about at its climax: some teams have already had their tournaments, while others will have them in the following weeks. This was an interesting year, with several new features coming into play in the competition. We hope our Mission Overview posts have been helpful to teams... here are our comments on the season in general, and follwing them is a list of links to all the posts for convenience. Jonathan's Comments: I think the major difference in this year's challenge was that there was a larger number of missions that were relatively easier to solve. So while each individual mission was, on average, easier to solve than last year's, it was harder to get many of them done in the time limit. Apparently the challenge was made such that a perfect score would be very rare (the designer, Scott Evans, said he considered that if a team got a perfect score, they "beat" him, because he tried to make it really hard to get one), but it may well h...

Objective: Move the wind turbines farther than directly outside of base such that they're touching a white part of the mat and are upright. Point Worth: 30 points (15 for each scoring wind turbine) Mission Location: n/a Estimated Difficulty Rating: 1/10 Time Length Rating: Low Unique Challenge Aspects: Position of wind turbines can affect the score of another mission ( Grid Connection ) This is the last mission post... how many of you teams out there have tournaments coming up? My team will be competing at the NJ Tournament on the 8th, so if anyone else is also going to be there, be sure to stop by and say hello! This mission is quite easy... just push the wind turbines out of the area directly outside of base. Unfortunately FLL was vague in their definition of "directly outside of base", but in a Q&A they put up a pdf to clarify. It shows the scoring areas on the mat, and you can see it here . Areas 11, 5, and 8 are considered directly outside of base, so you...

Objective: Move the three "Uranium" items OUT of the Farm. You do not nessecarily need to bring it to Base, but that will help in aspects of other missions. Point Worth: 15 points. Mission Location: The North-East (top right) corner of mat. Estimated Difficulty Rating : 4/10 Time Length Rating : Medium Unique Challenge Aspects: n/a Wow, this mission is pretty straightfoward and simple: move the Uranium rings (I didn't know Uranium came in rings!) out of the farm for 15 points, though it might do a team good to bring them back to Base. The one trick to this might be the tricky placement of the Uranium rings in the corner, with the possible trap of getting stuck in the corner. Note that these Uranium rings are also used in the Power Plant mission... each green Uranium ring moved to the Power Plant's property counts as an extra 10 points each, but a red Uranium ring will make the Power Plant mission count for nothing. Also, with all these tournaments starting up, fee...

Objective: Move the three "corn" items to Base, and make sure an oil barrel has been moved to the farm. Point Worth: 25 points. Mission Location: Near the South-East (bottom right) corner of mat. Estimated Difficulty Rating: 3/10 Time Length Rating: Medium Unique Challenge Aspects: n/a Sorry I'm so late with this one... seems like Pre-Calculus, Physics, Visual C++ .NET, and Basketball all conspired together to keep me busy for the last couple weeks. :P Anyway, this mission is mostly straightforward and easy to understand. One potentially confusing aspect, however, is the part about needing to move an oil barrel to the farm to get the points for this mission. This is due to the fact that there is a 40 point deduction if an oil barrel touches a property with a house in it. Since the farm is one such property, the oil barrel can't be touching the mat. As long as it's over the farm, but not actually touching the mat, you should be fine though. -Jonathan Richa...

Mission Information: The purpose of this mission is to simply keep the robot-operator from retrieving or "rescuing" the robot too many times. The referee penalizes a team by removing one of the barrels in the team's possesion (whether in Base, Parking Lot, or the foldable table ;-), thus causing a team to lose 10 points because each barrel in the team's possesion is worth 10 points. Also, the referre will prioritize taking white barrels before red. So, a team begins with five white barrels in Base, thus the team starts with 50 points. The team can also retrieve 3 more barrels (2 white and 1 red) from the Oil Drilling Mission. Therefore, there is a lot of strategy to consider: "Should I save time and grab the robot?" or "Should I save points and let the robot come bach to Base?" Also, we would like to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving, and everybody travelling do so safely! Richard Jonathan's Comments: Note that no Barrels will be taken away ...

Objective: Bring the yellow car to the house's property and take the red truck back to the parking lot or to the farm (white area enclosed by the two rivers). Point Worth: 25 points. Mission Location: Near the Northwest (top left) corner of mat. Estimated Difficulty Rating: 6/10 Time Length Rating: Long Unique Challenge Aspects: Requires you to both deliver and retrieve mission objects. For this mission, your robot has to move one object (the car) from base to a location, and another object (the truck) to base from a location. Also, the delivery location of the car might not be directly adjacent to the truck (it can be anywhere in the property of the house). These two factors make this a somewhat tricky mission, and we may be seeing some teams completing this in multiple runs. -Jonathan

Objective: Get the Rail Car to roll down the track. Only when the car has touched the stoppers at the end, is the team allowed to retrive the cart by hand to Base. Point Worth: 10 points Mission Location: South (bottom) East (right) side of the mat. Estimated Difficulty Level: 4/10 Time Length Rating: Medium Unique Challenge Aspects: This mission in itself is not difficult. Bump the trigger, cause the car to roll down the tracks, and then pick it up. Then why the relatively high ratings for difficulty and time? The trigger is in the corner of the table. To achieve the presicion required to bump the trigger, the robot is going running a rather slow speed, so we have rated this mission a medium time length rating. Also, to get into the corner, bump the the trigger, and get out of there without getting tangled is why we have rated the difficulty 4 out of 10. This mission is also rather unique, due to the unusual use of human hands. This was once done before, in Ocean Odyssey, when y...

Objective: Move the Power Lines from base so that they're touching the Power Plant's property and the white of at least one surrounding community. Bonus for touching the white of a surrounding community that is touching a scoring Hydro Dam or Wind Turbine. Point Worth: Up to 30 points Mission Location: Top (North) edge of mat. Estimated Difficulty Level: 2/10 for minimum points, 3/10 for maximum points (assuming Hydro Dam and Wind Turbines are in proper position) Time Length Rating: Low Unique Challenge Aspects: Amount of points recieved for this mission may depend on how the Hydro-Dam and Wind Turbine missions were completed. This mission is fairly straightforward and uncomplicated. However, it does require some precision if you want the maximum points, because the Power Lines model has to be in a fairly small range of positions to be touching the Power Plant and the three surrounding communities. This may prove to be somewhat difficult for RCX teams that aren't usin...

Objective: Move a team-designed Wave Turbine to the Ocean west (left) of the sandy beach. Point Worth: 25 points. Mission Location: Ocean area west (left) of the sandy beach. (The ocean around the House) Estimated Difficulty Level: 2/10 Time Length Rating: Medium Unique Challenge Aspects: The fact that you bring your own team designed mission makes this mission very unique. Though the design of the Wave Turbine is not scored, it would still be worthwhile to make a good design. The only requirement about the design of the Wave Turbine is that it must have at least two parts that can move independantly of each other. Because the distance from Base to the ocean is a considerable amount, we have given this a medium time length rating. Also, because this mission must be team-designed and incorporates two moving parts, we have rated this mission's difficulty 2/10. -Richard Jonathan's Comments: Although FLL encourages teams to make a meaningful design, they note that it won't be j...

Objective: Move the three oil barrels off the Oil Platform Point Worth: 10 points. Mission Location: Bottom left (South West) corner of mat. Estimated Difficulty Level: 6/10 Time Length Rating: Medium Unique Challenge Aspects: Scoring objects in this mission are also scoring objects in another mission. This mission has a couple interesting twists to it. At first glance, it might seem easier than it is - just press a nice wide lever and out rolls all three Oil Barrels for 10 points. While this is technically all you have to do for this mission, you'll lose 40 points from another mission (Oil Barrels) if one of the barrels is touching water at the end of the round. The Oil Barrels mission also gives you an extra ten points per barrel if you transport them back to base. Because of these factors, we've given this mission a 6/10 difficulty level. The time length rating for this mission is medium, because the robot may need to travel around the parking lot when going to the Oi...