Robotics Contest: First Day at the Maker Faire

They made it!  Of course the flight was delayed, and it was raining, and there were puddles of water on the floor inside the tent where the competition will be, but they made it.   Here are some pictures that the team has been sending me:

Aldo meets Moustache Man:

Mustache dude medium
Text message from from the team on Friday, 6pm: "By the way, here is a picture of Aldo with someone at the Maker Faire."

Andrea dons a USB bracelet:

Andreas USB bracelet medium
Text message from from the team on Friday, 8pm: "Andrea keeps forgetting to plug in the USB when we want to make changes to the code, so we had to tape it to her hand."

When Life Gives You Lemons,…

… make lemonade, right?  Make robots?  Nope, make a mustache and goo, goo, goggly eyes to put on the robot! About a week ago, one of the last remaining problems the team had to face was spurious RF noise from the motor brushes playing havoc with the microprocessor and making the robot claw arm go nuts.  The arm was jiggling so much that the balls were flying out of the scoop, even when Aldo was standing still.  I think this happened either very late one night, or in the wee hours of the early morning.   The problem was a potential showstopper, and they were running out of time.  Could have been a pretty devastating low point.  But did they despair?  Nope.  First they first made lemonade out of lemons by adding the mustache and goggly eyes. Then they fixed the problem the next day.  Here’s a video (thanks to my son Jeff for the editing and original score soundtrack):


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.