Victory! The Super Ninja Bunnies claimed victory at the qualifier competition on December 8th.

Victory! The Super Ninja Bunnies claimed victory at the qualifier competition on December 8th. The judging sessions went amazingly, and we were certain that the judges appreciated our Smartcane presentation. Our first try of the robot game only got us 151 points, but we more than made up for it during the second round, with our winning score of 433 points. The third and fourth try also went pretty smoothly. Also, we were awarded the prizes for both Robot Performance and Core Values. So, all in all, it was a great experience for our entire team.

-by Johnny

Gracious Professionalism

It is interesting to find out what kids were talking gracious professionalism. Tianhao said it was hard to work in a team. That is true. At the beginning of this season when we got the team set up, communication was our major problem. Team members weren't communicate very well. This is their new experience in life. Teamwork is just a word and doesn't mean anything. We did a few communication tests, and learnt a lot from those games. It was fun. Gracious professionalism means communication, teamwork, fairness and respect.

We have a solution

It took a long time for the team to agree on one solution. Every team member has a different opinion of what an innovative solution should be. We had multiple brainstorm sessions and group discussions, and eventually came up with our final solution. It was a team effort and team decision. It is Smart Cane, a.k.a. iCane.

Research

It took us a long time to identify a problem that we want to chase down for a solution. After many white board and brainstorm sessions, we ended up with top three problems for each of which we would create an innovative solution. The final solution was gone through a voting process. Coaches and kids all agreed on our final solution. 

Teamwork Games

We had some fun with those teamwork related games. In two of these games, team members are assigned with different roles: one observer, two messengers, and one builder. The observer will see the model that is already built. Only the observer can see the model and he needs to describe what he observes to the first messenger, the first messenger then tell what he is being told to the second messenger. The second messenger then tells the builder. The builder then completes the build. At the end, we will compare between the original model and the model they built and see if the model is being built the way it should be. This is actually a communication test to the team. 

Each member can only see one side of the model. Then they  get together to  complete the mode build. The left one is the original model. The right one is what the team completed.

November Scrimmage

We went to the November Scrimmage on Friday November 16. It was a good opportunity to get our team out there and do some practice in a new environment, and also to see how other teams are doing. If we could learn some thing new, that would be extra. It turned out that it was a fun successful event. We realized that we have many areas that need to be improved on.

Team T-shirts are ordered

Eventually we submitted the purchase order for our team T-shirts. This is done from an online custom shirt site at http://www.spreadshirt.com. I've never done a custom T-shirt before so let us see.

Bowling mission

The bowling mission must be one of toughest missions in this 2012 FLL challenge. The team already spent two weeks on this mission. The run indeed needs to complete the cardio exercise, bowling, TV and two shopping bags. There are some issues to overcome, i.e. line follower. The team has learnt a lot during doing practice and programming. We are working on it and stay tuned.

Here is a video of this mission's practice.

Get to know SNB - Oscar

Hi there, my name is oscar and replacing johnny as the oldest person in the group and also the newest. So far I have only done one of the simplest challenges. But that's going to change soon.

-Oscar

Oscar is downloading a NXT program from his laptop to the robot by using a USB cable.

Line Follower Success!

Hi everyone, I am Johnny, and I have just finished fixing the line following program. It's a simple five-state line follower, and it was originally working fine until we rebuilt the robots. I figured out the problem, adjusted the program, and it works perfectly!

-Johnny

Our team oath

Not sure how this is going to work. We made a team oath. They are just a group of rules that everyone team member need to follow along the season. This was done in a brainstorm session at Week #2. Tianhao was taking notes on the whiteboard. We had some laughs when Tianhao got spelling wrong on some words. The oath wasn't finished at the time. There are still two more rules left blank for us to fill out in the future.

Team Oath

More victories!

A few weeks' hard work started paying off. More missions are now completed: the blue quilts, the near tv, grabbing the chair and returning it. Smiling faces everywhere.

Keep things on track

The team made two schedules: the project schedule and the robot schedule. Each schedule has three elements: what, who and when, so everyone know what it is talking about and what the goal is. It is a bit tough to keep everything on track, but I found this really helpful for helping everyone in the team understand what we are going to do, who is going to do it, and when. Kids made all of this at week 2. It was a fun brainstorming session.

Schedules

Get to know SNB - Johnny

Hi everyone, I am Johnny. Being the oldest person (excluding the coaches) in the group, I usually get the harder jobs. So far, I have created an efficient five-state line follower program, and also made the green medicine program. Like the others, this is my first year in the FLL.

-Johnny

Johnny and his brother

Victory! Our first mission - green medicine is done.

Victory! Our first mission - green medicine is done. Congratulations to Johnny. You did a great job! The video is now on Youtube at http://youtu.be/fo-uQnzujH0.

Get to know SNB - Tian Hao

Hello, my name is Tian Hao. I am 11 years old.I am the attachment maker for the Super Ninja Bunnies team. I usually modify my attachments or make another one for the team. I made 6 attachments already which are being modified. This week I’m modifying the arm to make it lighter.This my first year in FLL.

-Tian Hao

Thanks

A simple robot for Run 1: green medicine mission

Bowling attachment

One more logo design

Another super ninja bunny with a flash sword designed by Johnny. Do you know what SNB stands for? You got it. It stands for Supper Ninja Bunnies, the name of our FLL team. Go SNB go!

Meet the senior partner

We took a field trip to meet our senior partner, Mr Ratzeburg and his wife. We talked about the senior solution project. We asked him many questions and he talked about his life and many challenges he faces in the daily life. Johnny was making notes when Bruce and Tianhao were talking to Mr. Ratzeburg. We will review the notes and choose one problem from the notes. It was late evening on Saturday, and we will meet again on Sunday morning for doing more programming and practice.

Programming the Robots

We started programming our robots during our last meeting. After lots of trial and error (mostly error), Bruce managed to get a working line follower program that used one light sensor. Johnny created a program for picking up the medicine bottle, but it required a lot of adjusting before it worked the way it was supposed to.

-Johnny

One of robots doing the green medicine mission

We got our table!

We got our table now! Thanks Tianhao's dad for having this table built and setup so quickly! Kids were so excited and completed all models set up within an hour and half.

    

Logo design

Tianhao submitted his logo.

Fun homework

In the spirit of the FLL core values, the team started with a logo design as thier very first homework. Each member needs to design a logo and then we will vote for the best one for putting it on the T-shirt. This is going to be one of many decisions that the team will have to make, but it should be an easy one.

A logo design by Bruce

Our field setup kit arrived

Our field setup kit arrived last week. Kids didn't want to wait and wanted to start building the models. However, our table hasn't been built yet.

Welcome to the SNB Team Blog!

Welcome to the SNB Team Blog! We are the team of SNB a.k.a. "Super Ninja Bunnies", a FIRST LEGO League team from the Vancouver BC area. The year 2012 is our first year participating in the FLL challenge. We hope that we will learn a lot of things along the journey, share our experiences with others, and have FUN!

We've created our team blog on Blogspot.com. This blog will be your source for great information about the SNB team. We are now blogging during the FLL 2012 Senior Solutions season! If you are interested in visiting our blog, please go to http://thesnbteam.blogspot.com. Our team email address is thesnbteam@gmail.com.

Stay tuned, and check out our blog regularly!

About Us

We are the team of SNB a.k.a. "Super Ninja Bunnies", a FIRST LEGO League team from the Vancouver BC area. The year 2012 is our first year participating in the FLL challenge. We hope that we will learn a lot of things along the journey, share our experiences with others, and have FUN!

The SNB Team, a FIRST LEGO League team based out of the Vancouver BC area, is now on Facebook and Twitter.

The SNB Team