Project Responses 1
What do we plan to do after competition?
We plan on donating our prototype to Mt. Prospect Assisted Living, and putting building instructions up online for free.
What problem were we trying to solve?
We decided to focus on the problem that people with hand tremors caused by Parkinson's disease could not paint.
Which missions did you choose and why?
We chose nearly every mission on the board, excluding the light tower and the sound mixer. To choose these, as a team we created a spreadsheet and ranked the missions on various factors, including the movement needed to complete them, the difficulty, and the fun. We then divided these into five runs, later combining them into three runs.
How did you make sure everyone on your team developed their building and coding skills?
As a team, we decided to have our most experienced programmers be our "lead programmers" - they then created our drive at angle, corrective turn, and spin at angle myblocks, and taught the rest of the team how to use them and how to code the robot in general - this way, the entire team could routinely code. WE ALSO KEPT A DOCUMENT OF WHO WAS PAIRED PROGRAMMING (CODING AND SPOTTING) EACH DAY to ensure everyone got multiple chances!
How MUCH did our project prototype COST?
What is $95?
Why didn't we get a provisional patent?
We feel it goes against core values. If we were to get one, others wouldn't be able to benefit from our solution.
What existing solutions are there? (name both!)
1.) mahl stick - stick meant to reduce hand fatigue and give your hand a resting place while it is tremoring.
2.) Readi steadi glove - weighted glove meant to reduce tremors.
How does our robot use attachments or sensors to complete missions?
We have three attachments, which each fit into attachment ports. These attachments are unique because of the quick release system we designed, where you can just quickly rip them off in under three seconds, without them suffering any damage. We also have an UPWARD FACING COLOR SENSOR that we can use to tell the robot which program to run.
Explain the most innovative part of our robot and our code.
(answer is subjective, up to presenter whether or not answer is acceptable or not)
Describe the toughest challenge your team faced and how you overcame it.
Answer is subjective
How did we resolve disagreements with the project?
We would take each others different ideas, weigh the pros and cons of each, and then combine the pros of both of our ideas into a really good one.
What is the most innovative thing about the idea we chose? (Open ended, no right answer)
Open ended - up to presenter whether your response is correct or not.
How did you ensure every team member was involved and understood the robot and coding?
As a team, we decided to have our most experienced programmers be our "lead programmers" - they then created our drive at angle, corrective turn, and spin at angle myblocks, and taught the rest of the team how to use them and how to code the robot in general - this way, the entire team could routinely code.
Explain your different codes and how they make your robot act.
Explanation of myblocks and how they work (cillian or rebecca, at competition, if this is asked, you may want to take this one)
Of all the things your team accomplished, what are you most proud of?
Answer is subjective, presenter of jeopardy will decide whether it is acceptable
How did we select our idea?
We created a list of over 100 hobbies we were interested in learning more about. We decided to focus on two hobbies from the list - gardening and painting. We created surveys and sent them to friends and family to collect what they felt were problems with the two hobbies. From their, we decided to focus on painting because multiple of our team members enjoyed doing it.
Why don't the existing solutions work?
1.) The mahl stick just reduces fatigue and gives you somewhere to rest you hand - it doesn't greatly reduce tremors while painting.
2.) The readi steady glove is way too big to be used when painting
How did we iterate our design?
RDBT
Requirements: We made a list of requirements we thought our robot needed.
Design: Each team member made a drawing of what they thought our robot should look like, and took the requirement list into account.
Build: We then identified the pros and cons of each persons design. We took the pros of each persons design and combined them into one awesome robot.
Test: We then created a test document, with a list of tests. We tested our robots durability, sturdiness, efficiency, and other factors. We also tested the speed of the attachment ports.
Describe one way your robot got better through the season.
Answer is subjective
How did we resolve any conflicts or disagreements that our team had?
Acceptable answer:
We would take each others different ideas, weigh the pros and cons of each, and then combine the pros of both of our ideas into a really good one.
there are other acceptable answers too, it's up to whoever is presenting the jeopardy!
How have we iterated upon our solution?
We realized that 3inch sliders would work much better than 6inch sliders, so we decided to change them.
Who did we choose to share our solution with, and what did they say?
We shared our solution with Elizabeth Levine, an Occupational Therapist who specializes in working with people with Parkinson's. Ms. Levine said she's definetly use our solution in her workplace. We also got to actually test our solution on two patients with parkinson's disease - they informed us that it "definitely helped"
Describe one way our robot got better through the season.
(Answer will be decided by presenter)
How did you check that your robot was consistent at scoring points on a mission?
We would run multiple runs without changing anything in the code, then we would score them and average the points together to see how consistent the points we were scoring were.
How did our coaches help us this season?
Our coaches would sometimes ask us questions to help guide us - they would also contact the experts we found online and organize opportunities for the team to meet with them. At one point in the season, both our coaches got covid, so we had to completely organize ourselves.