Our research results

Hello!  We've been doing a bit of research.  We've been researching how many cases of Salmonella there are per year, the symptoms of Salmonella, and the number of eggs per year that are infected with Salmonella.

About 1 in every 10,000 eggs is infected with Salmonella.  About 73,320,000,000 untreated eggs are produced in the US each year (I think), and so the number of infected eggs per year put onto the market will be about 7,332,000.

Now, the number of cases per year of salmonella is about 40 thousand but could be about 1,200,000. A maximum of 1 out of every 6 eggs isn't cooked properly, if ALL these cases are from eggs.  They probably aren't, and so this number needs to be reduced, but by how much?  To tell you the truth, we're not sure.

Where we got the information about 40,000 cases per year

Salmonella can be rather mild or it can be a pretty bad illness.  The symptoms can include vomiting, nausea, headaches, diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps.  Symptoms can last from 6-72 hours after infection.  It's a more common infection in summertime, children are more likely to catch it than adults, and the sickness can get more severe if the patient is young or old, or has a compromised immune system for any other reason.  There are a reported 400 deaths per year from Salmonella, though most people will recover completely.  Some long-term consequences can include pain in joints, irritation of the eyes, and Reiter's Syndrome (painful urination.)  This can last for months or years, and sometimes leads to Chronic Arthritis, which isn't affected by antibiotics, as it's not directly caused by bacteria.  (In this case, it's indirectly caused by them.)

Another Reference

I don't think any of us want to get Salmonella!              

We wondered if anyone is trying to do anything to stop Salmonella, and they are.  The government is going to hatcheries 4 times a year to check for egg quality.  They check to see if any of the laying hens are infected with Salmonella. The egg containers are labeled "keep refrigerated under 45˚ Fahrenheit."  If the companies choose to, they can have their eggs graded. They are being graded by the USDA (the United States Department of Agriculture). Grading means they check for quality and weight of eggs.

Research and missions

Hello!

The topic this year is food safety.  We've assembled the mission models, and right now two of us (no names mentioned) are working on building our robot, which we plan to make a synchro drive.  The other two of us are researching.  Now, we racked our brains for a problem, and came up with something.

Research has been going well!  We've contacted a few experts on a few of our ideas.  We have decided on a problem and it is salmonella outbreaks from eggs.  A few of our ideas are vaccinating the egg-laying hens, irradiating the eggs, pasteurizing the eggs, using a bacteriophage, and using competitive exclusion.

Irradiation is the process of putting materials under radiation to kill microbes on or in the material.  A common misconception about it is that it will leave food radioactive, but this won't happen any more than putting luggage through an x-ray machine will leave the luggage radioactive.  When used on eggs, it will weaken the yolk, and some people have reported a noticeable change in flavour, though others haven't.  Other common misconceptions are that irradiation will leave free radicals in food and diminish the nutritional value.  It won't leave many free radicals, so that shouldn't be a problem, and the diminishment of the nutritional value is very slight.

Pasteurization is when you heat the eggs then quickly cool them. This pasteurizes them. In the process it kills the bacteria. The down side is it only kills off most of the salmonella.  It also increases the price of the eggs to almost double the normal price. 

Vaccinations are another way to stop salmonella. The way a vaccine works is it injects salmonella bacteria that are inactive. The vaccine causes the immune system to develop antibodies for salmonella. If another salmonella infection follows, the immune system will kill the salmonella before it can cause illness because of the antibodies.

New season!

Brand new season and this year the theme is: FOOD SAFETY!
The board is set up, but we don't know all of the missions.. It doesn't look easy but we always say that.

We've tested a robot to see if one with treads would work with our line-follower, and it looks like it will.

Okay, that was Matt.  Alpha Rex here.  Now, me to talk about my design.  It needs a bit of clearance to turn, but it looks like we'll have enough on most of the board.  When I was connecting cables, I realized that it already has a built-in structure that can be used as a cable tie.  The reason it's so long is because it has a gear-powered arm, which needs a bit of length to produce.  It's a pretty controlled arm, though.  It has big wheels, but I have a couple kinks to work out, such as the fact that it looks like a bit of weight is on the caster wheel.  I can fix them.  I have not seen a robot with an ultrasonic sensor yet, so I figured it was safe to use one.  This robot is more carroid than humanoid or animaloid or buggoid or robotoid or pennoid or computeroid or cuppoid or boardoid or butterflioid or paperoid or treeoid or omletteoid or... you get the idea.  It looks a bit like a car.  This is all I have to say.

Our project

Our project is going as planned.  We wrote the intro script already, and all we have to do is memorize it and be prepared for any questions the judges have for us!

Turning to something else, we have found the definition of bionics!  (I know it's the week before the tournament, but bionics seems easy to define.)  Here is what dictionary.com has to say about bionics:


bionics
–noun ( used with a singular verb )
the study of how humans and animals perform certain tasks and solve certain problems, and of the application of the findings to the design of electronic devices and mechanical parts.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bionics)

It can also refer to these electronic devices and mechanical parts.

Turning to our robot, we are trying to tweak some things to increase each program's success rate.  We have relatively high success rate for all of them, but we are NOT PERFECT.  We can't be, though.  Well, I guess we could, but the chances are, in effect, zero.  (What are the chances of picking a random number out of all that exist {real, imaginary, positive, negative, rational, irrational, complex, etc.} and getting 3.1415926535897932384626..., which is pi, for those of you who haven't memorized it?  The chances are zero, but it's still possible.)

This is a post from Alpha Rex.

The wires on the NXT are like telephone jacks, with one difference: the snap-connector on top is to the side to prevent kids from plugging their NXTs into the telephone service.

Briiiiiiiinnnnnnnng!  Briiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnng.

Person: Hello?
NXT: Hello.
Person: Who is this?
NXT: Alpha Rex.
Person:AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!  ALIEN ROBOTS ARE INVADING!!!!!!!!!!!!
NXT: Resistance is futile.

Competition, Here We Come!

Teamwork isn't as bad as it sounds; we are working on it. Plus, we have made big progress with our programs. So now we are double-checking, tweaking, and timing like crazy to make sure that everything is shipshape.  We are readying for the big competition this week---only 6 days! We're practicing teamwork  exercises  so we will be prepared for the major assignment the judge will give us to see how well we work together. All in all, very exciting! Competition, here we come!!


--- Cell & Anna