Improving FLL Robot Game. Teacher's Notes. Durable and stable robots Pro Preview

Note for the teacher on making the construction more stable, more durable and using beams for this.

  • #465
  • 04 Apr 2017
  • 3:51

Direction of bending

Each construction of LEGO Mindstorms would not be perfect and would significantly bend when a force is applied. Try to see the direction in which the students' constructions bends and direct them on the improvement they should build. 

English

A note for the teacher on making the construction more stable, more durable and using beams for this. The students, they've come up with a construction probably it looks like this or in another way and it's important to look at the construction and if it bends, to see the direction. It might be possible depending on the construction, of course, to have these two legs move away from each other or move to each other. So, these are two different scenarios. In our very specific case they move away from each other. So, it's important for you to look at the constructions of the students and to try to direct them on how should they fix this. If the legs are moving away from each other, then they must connect the legs from the outer side of the legs. From this side of the legs. If the legs are moving into each other, then they must connect them from the inside of the legs. As in our current example because the legs are moving away from each other we connect the legs with pins that are on the outside of the legs. Like this. On the other side of the attachment we have the same situation. We have the back side of the legs that are trying to move away from each other and we have these angled beams that are 5x3. And here we have a perpendicular angle and helps with fixing the whole construction so that the legs don't move away from each other. Because it's an angled beam. Last but not least. If you use axles or pins to try to fix the legs from not moving, this will not work. So, take a moment, look at the students, see what they are doing and if they are trying to use axles most of the time the axles are fixed with the bushes right here and they move. So, using axles will surely not work. Third note for the teacher because such attachments take a lot of beams and probably you'll run out of beams. And that's kind of normal because it's a large attachment. So, you have two options. First, try to limit the work to the parts that you have and with these limitations that you have in your set you might be surprised of the different solutions that the students could come up with. And you can use this as a challenge. Okay, we must build an attachment but only using these parts. Because if you have thousands and thousands of parts, it is easy to build such an attachment. It's difficult to build it when you have a limited set of parts. And the other option, of course, is to buy additional beams. They are not that expensive and it is always a nice idea to have additional beams especially long beams, of course, 5 and 7 and 15 holes. So, that's the second option. But first, what we really like to do is to limit the students in the set that they are working and in the parts that we currently have and make them come up with solutions with these parts. It might not be the best solutions but if they come up with something using these parts, they'll surely come up with very good solution if they have more parts.

Courses and lessons with this Tutorial

This Tutorial is used in the following courses and lessons

Image for FIRST LEGO League (FLL) 2016-2017 Animal Allies. Review of solutions with explanations
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