Intro

This years season is: Body Forward. So our project is about bionics(Implants/fake arms/legs) some of our ideas are bionic ears and legs.

For the legs we're thinking of a system that the army came up with, Its a back pack with hydraulics  that move metal joints from the back pack to your shoes to take weight off your legs.

The issue with this system is that the pack is too large and heavy to be any use.

A second system we found is Rex Bionics (Page) It gives more mobility and its  smaller system. but the main issue is the price tag, it cost 150,000 to make and they are getting people willing to pay 250,000.

New Season

Hello, everyone!  Welcome to the start of our new season!  This year's challenge is Body Forward.  Our project is to find a problem with the body and make a solution for it.  As I type this, most of my fellow teammates are working on the robot.  There's not much more to say.

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.

Our Script

Hi! We are the Mindstorm Maniacs!

We are: Bat, Jared, Brice, Matt, and Maya

 We researched while trying to get a transportation problem.  A lot of our research is on what would help kids.  For example, we researched heely and bike safety.  We researched cars because they could crash into kids, and also because kids ride in cars.  This gave us our problem: The high number of fatal car crashes.  We got a solution that increases car safety.

After thinking of some possible solutions, we came up with one that uses ultrasonic sensors, which use sound but the levels can’t be heard.  We chose these sensors because they can measure distance, so you can also measure speed of another object relative to the sensor, and also, because it seemed like a simple solution.

Volvo has some cars that have a system to stop low-velocity crashes.  We visited a dealership (Demontrond Volvo) for a demonstration.  Apparently, Volvo’s City Safety Crash Avoidance System can stop about 50% of all rear-ending crashes and uses cameras and radar. This is similar to our solution, except radar uses microwaves rather than sound. 

We contacted an expert on robotics, Dr. Sandor Szabo from NIST.  We asked him some questions on sensors.  He said that some other crash avoidance systems use ultrasonic sensors for backing up.  Avoiding collisions generally reduces the number of all crashes, so it probably reduces the number of fatal car crashes per year.  Technology can be used to help avoid crashes.

To tell people about what we learned, we have a blog, mindstormmaniacs.blogspot.com.  Our project, a video, is on Youtube and our blog.  We also have links to all of our research on our blog.  Our blog has been visited more than a thousand times. 

Competition

The big day is coming up, and we are freaking out! The Comp. is on Saturday. We have only two more practices until the Comp. We think that everything is coming together now. Recently we visited the Demontrond Volvo dealership to learn more about the City Safety System. We got to take a test drive in the City Safe Cars, and one of the men there, Mr. Trentini, kindly ran it into a few barriers for us, with us in it! It didn't even touch them, and Mr. Trentini didn't even touch the steering wheel. We also learned of more technology built into the new cars, like a camera in the back for reversing. The image form the camera is showed on a screen in the car, and it shows yellow lines on the road, showing where your tires will go. This helps to keep the guesswork out of reversing. Also some models have cameras on the rearview mirrors to eliminate blind spots.

This is a post from Your Mom! (like my signature?)
See Spot. See Spot run.
C4. C4 RUN!!!

Bike Safety

When riding a bike, always wear a helmet. Make sure that you are always paying attention to cars and other things around you, because even if you are a good rider,  there are still other people around you that may not be as attentive as you. Make sure that you do not ride too fast near cars, parked or moving, because a parked car's door may open if someone is getting out and you don't want to run into them, or the car door! Never allow yourself to be "towed" behind a car, or any other motorized vehicle. Also, never ride into a street or path without looking first. Lastly, stay away from obstacles. Bike+Tree+Speed, you do the math!

See Spot. See Spot run.
C4. C4 RUN!!!!