Howe Deck Truss

*ROBOTICS CLUB NEWS*

Bring your popcorn! Next meeting (_Weds Jan 30th_) its MOVIE NIGHT at Robotics Club! We'll be showing the PBS NOVA program "The Great Robot Race" which follows teams competing in the Pentagon's DARPA Grand Challenge—a race of driverless vehicles on a 130-mile course with a $2 million check for the winner. For more information and extra features visit:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/

Can't make it to the next meeting? Watch the movie online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/program.html

Bridge building will on continue on _Weds Feb 6th.

Lego Trusses

The problem that many beginners face when they are starting to build Lego truss bridges is the issue of building triangles. Legos are a primarily rectangular medium, so some thought needs to go into the construction of sturdy, angled frameworks.

A very commonly-used technique is to use Lego Technic elements to construct trusses. 1xN bricks with holes are placed next to each other and 3L pins are used to place 1x4 with holes behind them, to hold them in line. The protruding end of the pin is used to place bars on angles with other brick assemblies, allowing bars at angles. While this approach is easy and requires only pins and bricks with holes, it doesn't allow the diagonal members to meet in true truss-bridge fashion. This approach will work for smaller bridges, but different ones will be needed for structures carrying much larger loads.


http://www.brickwiki.org/

Fifth Grader Challenge - Can the robot stop the nuclear reactor before meltdown?

Caffrey and Kai's Mars Rover

NASA's Mars Rover has successfully landed on the surface of Mars. Unfortunately the lander door in front of the robot is stuck. Can the third graders get the rover off the lander?

http://www.zweistein.de/lego/the_bridge_of_bottrop.html

Jan. 9 - Robotics Club

We kicked off the robotics club with a bit from PBS - Build It Bigger: Bridges. This series is available from Netflix.

We then started working on a project from Zoom - building bridges our of straws and pins.