20/4-08

Helene Written by Helene

We biked to Pers just after school and spend the whole day there, fixing the last parts of the pit. In the end we decided to put the pictures of our team on a sort of drying leash along the walls to illustrate that you should dry your clothes outside instead of in the tumble dryer. And to the competition in Copenhagen we will keep another competition about the best Co2 saving proposals and me and Bo will go and by the price this Friday. In the evening there was a meeting for the whole team, so we stayed there the whole day. In the meeting we discussed how far we were from being completely done, practiced theory and showed the others the pit, which is enormous.

 

12/3-09

Andreas Written by Andreas

Today we were at Per’s place to plan, how our pit should be. We meet at two o'clock pm, right after school. We agreed to put black Fibretex on the wall in the back of the pit, and eventually put some pictures on it. On the side walls, we want to put some red material and also some pictures. We want to cover the top of the pit with black fibretex, so it will be dark in the pit, but not so dark that you can't see anything, because then there will be no reason to hang up the pictures. In one of the inner corners we want to put a laptop which also has to show pictures, but not the ones we have on paper. Carl have promised us to fix some light we can hang up in the top corners of the pit, so there will be a little light, so we better can see the pictures. We also agreed that we don't want to bring all of our trophies, because they're taking to much space in the cars, off course they don't fill so much alone, but when we have to have the robot and all the parts for it, it's of a little higher priority.

 

2-3/3-09

Helene Written by Helene

Now we are on our way to Norway. StatoilHydro kindly invited us to visit them. Thank you, StatoilHydro!

I am sitting in the airplane and listening to music, time moves incredibly slowly. We have only been flied half part of the way but I’m already bored to death. I can’t wait until we get there. The only thing we got to eat here was two tiny sprig rolls. So I think we will go and get something to eat as soon as we have checked in at the hotel. The airplane isn’t as cool as the one we flew to Japan in, but luckily we only have to sit here for 2 ours instead of 12. But I have nothing to do so I am writing I little diary for our tour, and I will probably finish it on the way home. Acording to our tickets we were supposed to start at 14.55 (but I’m not sure if we keep to the plan) and Michael says that the trip takes ca. 2 ours so we should be there at 16.55. Unfortunately it is only 16.05 right now so we still have to fly in another 3 quarters. But that is all you will get from us about the first day of our trip so I will try to sleep the last 45 minutes away. Yeah, now I’m back with the diary, I’m sitting in the plane in Trondheim but we have not started yet. There are two very noisy Germans behind me but anyways, back to the diary.

Welcome

Anyway, we arrived 10 minutes before planned. We met right outside the plane and then we walked together out of the airport and into a bus which was to take us to our hotel. When we checked in we where told to be back in the lobby in a half our. Pernille and I shared a room and so did Per and Mikkel and Andreas and Jakob. Tobias had to sleep alone because there only were 7 children with us. We found a place to eat and almost all of us ordered Pizza. Of course I couldn’t eat that giant pizza so Per and Andreas and Jakob shared the rest of mine when I was done. After that we went home to relax and be ready to the next day. We had agreed to meet in the hotel restaurant at 8 o’clock.

StatoilHydro

Unfortunately for me Pernille hadn’t told me that she would get up and take a shower already half past 6! so when I woke up because of the noise she made I didn’t go to sleep again but started getting dressed and packing.! I almost killed her when I found out, but instead I went straight back to bed and slept until 7.25 am. After breakfast at the hotel we got on a bus with the Norwegian team “Team Extreme”. We arrived to the StatoilHydro research center and they led us into an auditorium and got a (Norwegian) welcoming speech. They showed us around and we saw the laboratory and we tried some experiments. There was only room for 6 of us at a time in there. so in the meanwhile the others were driving toy cars and singing Danish songs with a very nice guy called “Tore Arnesen” I believe. We showed the other team our theoretical presentation and saw their. Then we drove a robot competition. Norvegian television recorded it, and you can see it here (http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/indeks/163665).

Competition

After that we took a cap the airport and now we are sitting very apart in the plane. But we have been flying in quite some time since a started writing this and I don’t have anything more to tell.

 

18/2-09

foto Written by Pernille

This week, we have our winter vacation and therefore we have a lot of time, which we can spend on the robot. We are starting early on the work, because the robot has to be finished by March 1. That is because we are going to the Statoil Hydro’s research center in Norway, and they would like to see our robot driving against the Norwegian team, called Team Extreme. Today we have been doing a lot. We did one thing at a time, so we are getting done faster. We have been working with the House, the Readiness. The biggest problem we have is the readiness; the robot has these caterpillar tracks that it has to get over the model. The problem is that there is a little too much weight on the top of the robot. We have also started building a copy of our robot, just if anything happened to the original one, we would have this extra. Today we also got help from our old teacher Rune, who helped us with the Readiness.

 

12/2-09

Foto Written by Helene

We meet at 2 pm and started working with the pit-robot, while some of us translated their part of the diary and some others started translating the new pieces of diary, there has been added after we have given everyone their part to translate, because sadly enough people are forgetting to make them in English, which means a lot more work for us. As we decided the last time, we should get a RCX because it was easier to mount when it’s just for decoration in the pit area. We started with just building, to see how it could be done. And in the end we also got it build, but it was too big and clumsy, so we chose to rebuild it. This time, with the experience from last trial, we build it so the weight is better divided and it can stand on two wheels. Actually we haven’t used so many blocks, but that’s just fine and our robot looks like a rabbit.

 

1/2-09

portræt Written by Pernille

Mikkel, Tobias and I, met today, to work on the robot. Jakob had to play a Handball mach, so he came a little later. We are focusing on getting the tools done, so we can start programming. In the beginning we started talking about what was going to happen and what we were going to do today. The tasks were the readiness, the house, the balls, and the arrows.

 

29/1-09

foto Written by Helene

We meet at 2 pm just after school, and started with deciding who were going to translate witch dates in the dairy. We have given everyone to dates to translate and they got until 23. February, until I should have them.

We also decided which schools we will try to send our walking school bus to, we chosen the school in Frejlev and the school in Nibe, because they are both schools, not to much on the country side and not too much in the big cities, and neither of them is too crowded.

We are now all done with translating the theoretical task and are just waiting until next team meeting with the parents so we can get it all together. I think that’s all for today.

 

26/1-09

foto Written by Pernille

Today we meet at 2 pm, because most of us had gotten free from school by then. The others had to come later when they got free. We made a lot that day.

On the robot we were working with: balls, house/drilling and readiness. To the balls we made a whole new tool and made the program. In the house-tool we needed to fix some small mistakes and of course make a program to it. And in the readiness we made a small change so that the money-ball also is coming out in the research area.

In the evening we also had a meeting with the whole team and the parents. There were a lot of discussions about accommodation in Copenhagen, economy and so on.

 

24/1-09

portræt Written by Tobias

We have been considering the programs menu: In the wonderful Scandinavian finale in Kongsberg, Norway we had 6 programs to the robot competition. According to our plans (which we have discussed a lot) we are only to have 5 programs.

When you are at the robot competitions you have to pick the programs fast from the menu. But with a lot of programs you’ll have to go in and out from many of them to find the right one. We have experienced that with a few programs you’ll save some seconds, which is good to have. We have developed a so called menu-program, which will make it a lot easier to choose the programs faster to the competitions.

 

1/12-08 til 6/1-09

foto Written by Jakob

After the Scandinavian finale and in the Christmas time, we have been meeting regularly to build on the robot. On the day the school closed, for the Christmas we also met after school. There we got a visit from our old supervisor and teacher who helped us a little with building the new robot. The problem with the old one was that it wasn’t compact enough, and we had quite a lot trouble because the light was different at home, and when we were at a competition.

 

29/11-08

Helene Written by Helene

This is the day for the Scandinavian finale. A quick summary: Dauerkraft ended up being Scandinavian champions by winning the “champion award”, after a very long day. Beside that, we won the “robot design innovation award” for our construction of our robot and technical presentation and we won the “project innovative solution award” for our theoretical presentation and our innovative ideas to solutions to the problems with the climate. We were also nominated to the “robot design programming award” and the “robot design quality design award” and we became number 7 in the robot competition. All together it was way more than we had ever dared to dream of. We are now qualified to the First Lego League Open European Championship (FLLOEC)

 

20/11-08

Written by Andreas

In the last few weeks, we have look through everything, watching for anything there needed to be fixed. I our theoretical presentation, do we present a little idea about a school-walk-bus. Now we will make it come true, so we have made some questionnaires and delivered them to our school. In this questionnaire we are asking the teachers and the parents what they think of the idea and if they would like to help us make it come true. We have not got the questionnaires back, but we hope we can get the results with us to Norway.

Another thing there needs to get fixed is one of our drawings. We believe that the judgers can find it hard to see clearly, so we are planning to make it easier to see, by drawing on the old lines with a better pen. But we have looked it all through and now we just have to show it to the judgers. We have great expectations and we hope for the best.

 

15/11-08

Written by Tobias

We meet at 8 am and started working with the robot and the programs.

Today we have been focused on the drilling rig. The robot is driving to the drilling rig pushing it into the corner and removes the oil well tower. After that it catches the yellow ball with a little cage. Then it drives to the research area and take the ice sample back to the base. It has caused us some troubled, with hitting the house right. Today we stopped earlier than normal.

 

14/11-08

Written by Pernille

Today we started early, because we got free from school before we usual do. And we can also stay here longer because it’s weekend. We have also gotten a visit from our good old teacher Rune; he wanted to see how it went with us. We have finished hole 4 assignments today. One of them is the store, where we have to drive out with the balls and the red men while we take the storm. When we have placed them, we can take the ice buoy. We have had some troubled with the computer today; it won’t exactly the same as we wanted it to in the beginning. The ball keeps sliding out of the tool. It is now 8.15 pm and we are going to stop.

 

10/11-08

Written by Pernille

We began the meeting 3.30 pm, right after school. We began to brainstorm about how we could solve the problems we had to the Danish competition in Herning the 8th November. Our robot hasn’t been driving as we wanted it to. After a lot of talk, we agreed that we must split up some of the tools and reassemble them. Partly to save some time, but we also want the robot to drive more stable.

The same evening we had a meeting with our parents and the cheerleaders, because we now are going to Norway, so there was a lot of planning about the trip.

 

8/11-08

Written by Per og Jakob

It was 5 o’clock am Saturday morning, and we were all very tired. Many had come too late into bed, because we were working on the robot yesterday. It was the day of competition, and the bus was ready to take us to Herning. We packed and knew that we would be in Herning two hours later. In the bus we were practicing the technical and theoretical presentation.

When we came to Herning, we were emptying the bus. We were the first team, coming through the door a hole hour before we had be there, because the traffic had gone so well. We started to find our pit area. We had prepared a lot of things, that we wanted to show. We had arranged that we could borrow a nearly 2 meters high electric windmill of Vestas. We also had a professional photographer to take some pictures of us to hang up in the pit. We had brought the 4 cups we won last year with us. We also have a tablecloth, which was matching the color of our logo. The first presentation was the theory - we were ready. We came, introduced our team, and we started. We touched on everything: from iberian snails to the calculation of the CO2 and the ice cap.

We had taken our own robot table with us, and it was a good idea, because the robot was not optimal. We could run 400 points, but not in time. Therefore, we needed to compromise and run the programs that gave the highest scores. It was time for the first round, the robot was clear, and the time was sat in motion. The robot ran, but it was not good, and there were only 55 points on the board. We walked very disappointed from the table and into the robot table. We tried to improve the robot and change the programming of it and had probably improved a little, because in the second round we got 145 points.

The third round was not better, and we only had 145 as the best score, though we could score over 300 points at home. We went to the robot table and worked with the tings we could do better. The last runs were executed, and it had been decided, who were among the 8 best, and we moved on. We were a bit lucky and had just passed as number 8. Now the quarter-finals came, and this time we got over 200 points. It was not perfect, but it was enough to go on as number 2 to the semi-final. We were working almost the whole day at our robot table and tried to improve the robot.

In the semi-finals it was almost perfect, and we went to the final. It was now time for the final and we were all very excited. The finale ran over 2 laps. At the first lap we were a bit lucky, because we ran our best robot round of the day (285 points), while our opponents, Non CO2, ran one of their worst. We were already at the first round 100 points ahead and did not need to run especially well in the second round to win.

The second round started and at the end everybody were jubilant happy, and although the opponents ran a little better than us, it was not enough to take the victory from us. We were very happy and we could hear our cheerleaders in the background scream our signature tune. We won the price of insight, construction, and number 1 in the Robot competition and champion award and the right to participate in the Scandinavian finale in Kongsberg.

 

5/11-08

Written by Per og Andreas

3 days left. We have arrived just after school, to continue our work. We are very busy. The programs for the robot take too much time. We can make 400 points, but we can’t do it in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. We are reprogramming the robot right now, so we can save time where it is possible. After the reprogramming we should be able to do it in less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

One of the tasks that we are having many problems with is the house. Our thoughts to this task is, that the robot have to drive to the house, then it has to open the window closest to the base, after that the robot will raise the house, and then the robot will go and raise the arm at the drilling rig. That is a task which is very annoying. But we really work hard. We have thought about taking a training round, with the technical presentation. The theory was practiced once more, and our old music teacher was there to practice our show, and help us with recording the text and the melody, so we could put it all together. This will make it a lot easier for us to do our show. And by the way, we have just got the permission to do our show. GREAT!

3/11-08

Written by Jakob

5 days left. Today we have had theoretical presentation. Technical presentation is not ready yet, we must go on Wednesday.

We are starting to realise that time is short. We are excited and have butterflies in the stomach. The robot is finished, so now we need to refine programs and practice. We can’t cope with everything at 2:30 minutes.

 

2/11-08

Written by Mikkel

6 days left. Today at 15 pm, there is sneak performance on the robot driving. We have invited parents, etc, it is maybe a little risky because we still haven't solved yesterday's problem, but we're working under high pressure.

A few hours have gone now, and we are a little stressed, there is still no solution to the problem, but now we make that ready that we have now, and we must solve the problem later. The driving was OK, there is still much, that needs to fall in place and above all, we must practice, practice and practice, so we get all the routines in place and so we can achieve all tasks in just 2:30 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

1/11-08

Written by Jeppe

They must have been working a lot in the robot room today because when the ice-cream man arrived the whole room was filled with enthusiasm and the temperature was like on a hot summer day even though it was freezing outside.


There is still one unsolved problem. How do we get the robot over the ice to the research area at last? We have been thinking in every possible and impossible way, about caterpillar, raising/lowing systems and so does the list continue.. We just keep on thinking. And by the way, my little sister Stine found a raspberry in the garden yesterday.

A little bit late for that I believe.

 

31/10-08

Written by Andreas og Jeppe

Today we had our CO2-booth, called “Tab 1 ton” or in English “Loose a ton”, down at the grocery shop. We wanted to tell people about CO2, but also get a few good suggestions to how we can save CO2. We had gotten permission to place our booth on a little table inside the shop, and there we placed our brochures. With the brochures was our main prize, a very great basket with a lot of great stuff, and it was all sponsored by the grocer. THANKS MERETE you’re cool.

We were standing out by the road trying to “catch” people, when they were on their way in. In the beginning we asked them if they were interested in getting to know something about CO2, and to tell the truth there weren’t many who did. Everyone was busy on such a Friday afternoon. So we had to go a little further. We asked them if they wanted to win a nice basket and suddenly there was way more interest. That gave us many good Smalltalk’s about CO2, pollution and a little bit of everything; because we knew many of them who came there, and many could remember us from last years FLL and wanted to hear a little bit about Tokyo (we competed in First Lego League Open Asian Championship in Japan last season).

We were out on the street for 2 hours, but we switched around a little so there always was someone standing inside in the shop and outside on the street, so if there was someone who had avoided the ones outside they would just run into the arms of the ones inside. It was also madly cold, so there was a little fight of who of us there should stand inside. When it became 6 pm we looked through all the saving tips. A lot of them were about cans, heat and tumbler driers. The one we though was the best was the one about raising our kids to be more consciously consumers, we could see something very good in that, so it seemed to be the winner. But then, just as we were on our way out to deliver the prime, someone came running after us with a last suggestion. He was a young man from inside the city, and he was one of them who didn’t have time, but anyway took a brochure. At home he had thought a little about it, and realized how important it is to think about things. He had written many fine suggestions about public transport witch are something that we discovered is a huge CO2 sinner. But the thing that was best was that he had gone home and thought about it and then came back with the results. We could see that we had made him think about it. We went home and got warm again, and we had a really good experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

29/10-08

Written by Jeppe

We have a theoretical meeting at the kitchen table. We agreed our inventions must be a self-sufficient gym, where bicycles etc. are making power through a generator and batteries. Our second idea was statutory solar collector in all roofs. We have described and shared the theory up.

 

27/10-08

Written by Jeppe og Bo

It has been a busy day. First we present our theoretical task. We still need some wilder inventions which can save our planet from CO2. We have talked a lot about it, and we have some ideas, but do we have the right? A few of us worked on getting the journal up to date. And the rest of the team was fighting with the robot. There are a lot of ideas, but we have to choose the best. We worked at the task with the house. That is hard to get the robot in the right place to do the tasks at the house because the thing on the house is so little and has to be hit the right way. The poles are difficult to get up. If the robot should push down at the little stick, it has to use a lot of power and if it should push it up, it has to have a longer arm.

Rune (our adviser from last year) also came to our meeting in Tostrup, that was nice, and he had also some god advice to the theory and robot tasks. We had common meeting from 19 o' clock pm, and the last meeting and thing was being placed now. It's kind of strange; the competition is so close now.

 

25/10-08

Written by Jeppe

Today we had a meeting at the theory-/pit team. We started the morning with a small meeting and then we started working, but we didn’t have much to do, because we already were ready with everything. But we had some few things that could be done. One of the tasks to be done was that we would bring a message about CO2 out in the local area, so we have decided to make a CO2 savings remedy, which we called "Loose 1 ton", down by the town's grocery. There we wanted to give some flyers away, with saving-tips, and organize a small competition. So one of the things we had to make today was to get the flyers ready and make signs for our remedy. We were also at the grocery, who gave us permission to come and she would even give us a basket, we could use as the first price in our competition. Another thing we also had to refine is our final theory presentation, so now it is ready for the judges in Herning. So, it was a rather constructive day today, but not with a high stress level.

 

20/10-08

Written by Jeppe

IToday we had a visitor. Janus, who is our old music teacher from the community school, came. We rehearsed the show. We threw all inhibitions and danced and sang. Although it probably wasn’t perfect, it was very fun.

 


 

 

19/10-08

Written by Jeppe

Today we have collected all loose ends here at Andreas home, we have written a manuscript and got ideas to our CO2 booth, finished up building and programming the robot for the pit area, it’s a bit hard to make it behave.

 

18/10-08

Written by Jakob

We spend the weekend working on the robot. Today we have again been working with the robot assignment with the balls. It drives out and collects all the balls there are spread out on the robot table. After that we have programmed it to drive to the underground stock of CO2. There is four grey balls on the table there need to be picked up and delivered to the underground railway. The four balls are supposed to be carbon dioxide which is to be buried. We are only taking 3 of them, and the last one is to be taken in the next program.

There is one yellow ball on the table which needs to be delivered to the research area or to the underground railway. It doesn’t matter which one, they give the same points. We have chosen to deliver it to the underground railway, because we then can take the 4 grey balls at the same time. The yellow ball is supposed to be money to the workers. Neither of the balls is being delivered in this program.

 

16/10-08

Written by Per

Company visit to Vestas in Ringkøbing

We have arranged with Vestas to get a guided tour on their factory in Ringkøbing. So we were ready at 10 o’clock am. Ursula began to tell about the history of Vestas, about how Vestas started as a little blacksmith and later on became a huge windmill producer. After the history Ursula explained us about the two latest windmills: The V0 and the V90. She also told us the differences of them. Actually it was very surprising: The V90 (V stand for Vestas and 90 stands for the diameter of the windmills wings) is much better than the V80: It is 20 tons lighter, and it can extract much more electricity for the same wind. The most of the secret is in the windmills wings: The wings can “pitches”, which mean it can rotate to get the optimal exploitation of the wind. We also got a guided tour through the factory, to sense the size of the factory.

We started with the point, where all three wings would be established for each 164 nails. Then we came to the nacelle, which is the house of control. It was as big as a camper and contained about 30,000 parts, if you go down into details. A little further along in the factory, we could see the gearboxes, which weighted about 6 tons. After the guided tour, we got a lot of wonderful food. There was everything from salad with potatoes and delicious tender meat. When we had eaten, we showed our Power Puzzle robot on a pitch, we had brought our self. We had unfortunately not done the Climate Connection robot finished, so we could not show the Climate Connection robot. Then we got a good conversation about FLL and robot programming with some engineers.



We got permission to ask a group of Vestas employees about CO2 and windmills, and we actually got a lot of knowledge. Then we headed home, 168 km. Wise and weary.

 

13/10-08

Written by Per

We have autumn vacation this week, but we make a lot anyway. We were 4 today. We have both worked on pit, theory and robotics. To the pit we have an extra NXT, so we can make something eye catching to the pit. The persons working on the pit-robot is quite inexperienced on the robotics area, but it is actually becoming quite good. We have placed the 2 engines that shall pull the robot in the front, and a support wheel in the back. The NXT is placed on the top so we can put the wires compact packed together below the NXT. We have also chosen to put the last engine in the back, so it can wave with our logo and a flag.

We have also written down, what we need to use for the pit, and written who needs to get and make the things. When we started making theory, we created an outline, so we could keep control of what we have done and what should be done. It is indeed going very fast. We have made the basic, and we are currently analysing the consumption energy in houses, so we can find out the difference between the Danish consumers, and it is actually very different, what we use. We chose 4 different families with 4 persons: We have a farmer family with about 150 cows; they spend about 110,000 kW a year. We have a family where the house is more than 25 years old and don't have floor heating. Then we have a family where the house is under 15 years old and has floor heating. And then we have a family with alternative energy. Then, we have analyzed the numbers and have put them into tables and charts.

 

12/10-08

Written by Bo og Pernille

Today we have been preparing to go to Ringkøbing, to Vestas, to show our old robot. We practiced a lot with our own robot so it just functions very well, and everything’s just work..

 

11/10-08

Written by Jakob

Michael, our coach (and my dad) and I have discovered, that there is a secret message hidden in the robot-table, if we connect the almost invisible dots.

What does it mean? Are there any more messages we haven't seen? And what can we use it for? We discussed it on our blog with the rest of the team and we think Tobias' proposal is the right. He wrote: As I told earlier, I think it's the reflection of the sun light. The water reflects 3,5% of the sun light and the ice reflect 90%. That is a hint to our theoretical team, about when it's getting hotter, the ice melt and then there will be more absorb of the sun light, and there will be even hotter. It's a chain reaction.

 

8/10-08

Written by Andreas

Today we had the theory meeting at my place, even though we didn't have much time today, but we worked as hard as we could the few hours we had, and made a lot of preparations for the meeting with Vestas that's coming up. We've got a deal that we come and visit them one day in the autumn holiday. Today we have found some family's, who doesn't care that we calculate their CO2 realizing. The thing we have thought about is that we could calculate CO2 realizing for an ordinary household, a family with an alternative energy source, an older house and a farm, that is what we have hoped for. We have to try and see if we can get the numerals now, if we can't we have to wait until Monday to make the analysis.

It's not the only thing we want to do today, nope, we also have to make some questions that we would like to ask Vestas. That is something we would like to think about today and through the week until the meeting, then we can get as many questions as possible, that can help on our theory presentation. We also need to ask the rest of the team and see if they got some questions for Vestas. Some of the questions have something to do with: How much a windmill helps on the CO2 realizing, and why we can't keep the energy a windmill produces. If we could do that it would help even more. If all of our energy use was alternative it would help a lot on our CO2 realizing.

 

6/10-08

Written by Andreas, Pernille og Bo

Dear diary Today we have another of our Monday meetings. We met in the local hall, and so we worked on FLL from after school until 7 o'clock pm. We decided to split us in two groups: Robot and theory + pit. For each of the two groups, we have some persons responsible for the work will be finished in time, but we still help each other. We have made great progress in the theory group during the last week, so we have decided to start making the pit. We have some thoughts about a little "entertainment" robot running around in circles, or perhaps a little more. We will find out along the way. We are intense to get well with the pit-robot. We began by discussing how we thought it would look like, and then talk to the robot group, who knows a bit more about building robots. We have talked it through and taken a decision. We worked with the technical presentation. We now have 6 pages to our book. We have decided to make a book about our technical presentation, which we will deliver to the judges at the competition. We worked very well on the theory part, which we worked on until 7 o'clock pm. Then we came to the more difficult parts of the pit robot, and we were a bit time-pressed, because we also had decided to have a meeting together with our parents. But except for the end of day were we had a little time pressure, we were light-hearted and happy. At the meeting we talked about how far we had come with the FLL project, and how it was going with the robot and theory + pit groups. The meeting began at 7 o’clock pm. and ended at 9 o’clock. During that time we talked it all through and made a deadline for the theory, so we could reach practicing before the "big day" (the competition). The mood is high and we are looking forward to the big day.

4/10-08

Written by Jeppe

Today we were at my home. We looked at websites with CO2 calculation programs. It is not quite as easy as we thought it would be, but we have found a good program on a web page called ‘1 ton less’. We have also talked about the task and how to get our message out, and how we could do it, we have talked about a booth, demonstrations and a lot of other things, but nothing has been decided yet.

 

3/10-08

Written by Bo og Pernille

We have now made the gear for the robot and we have started to program. We have worked most on gathering the balls. This has been one of our biggest problems so far, because the gear was too heavy. Our tool consists of a frame mounted on our robot where all the balls can be in. There is also a big arm that goes from our click system with a lot of teeth on which blocks the balls once they have entered the frame. Once we have gathered the balls we run them over to underground CO2 storage in the left corner and then lift the arm up so it does not pull the balls back again.

 

29/9-08

Written by Bo, Pernille og Jeppe

To day we have worked with the collection house. On the theory area we have primarily worked with the global climate problems. All the knowledge that has been collected in summer is now written together and boiled down to what we need. Then we have dumped our third robot. It had the motors placed vertical, it looked good but the robot was way too tall. So now the robot is in the fourth issue. It has three motors placed so the 2 sits side by side, but the one in the middle is pushed a little longer forward than the two others. The two outer motors control the wheels, but the middle motor controls our genius click-system and all the movable parts on the tools. We have two light sensors placed in front and under the robot. They are pointing down to the field and are ready to intercept colours and changes.

Between the two light sensors we have placed a touch sensor, and we have placed one in the bag. When the robot drives forward or backwards into something, and pushes the touch sensor in the front or in the bag, the robot stops, and it will have time to do other things. We have placed two big wheels in the middle in each side. It is these wheels that are controlled by the outer motors. Then the robot has six supporting wheels different places, they makes sure that the robot doesn't overturn or progressing. All the wheels are placed so the robot can drive completely close to the wall or the field.

 

26/9-08

Written by Jeppe

Today we have been out and photography the climate changes in our town Soenderholm. A “Rododendron” and a “Spirehæk”, flowers there are flowering in September, strange snails etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25/9-08

Written by Jeppe

Today we had a theory meeting in Andreas’s home. We have decided this work schedule:

Part one: Review - Climate changes issues and general problems. - Globally, how it is visible in the world. - Locally, how it is visible in our city and surrounding area. (Resulting in the keyword or main problem “CO2” that leads to the next main point)

Part 2 analysis: - CO2 emissions from a typical Danish family. We choose a specific family from the class (it may be typical) and get them to make a CO2 calculation for a day or a week. - Select tools that can present these figures clearly. - Find the average figure for CO2 emissions worldwide. - Compare these figures and explain differences and similarities.

Part 3 Proposal for CO2 savings - Locally with our families - Worldwide

Part 4 How to bring the message out and to whom? We find the following links relevant:
http://www.energitjenesten.dk/files/CO2regnskab/energiregnskab%5b1%5d.xls
http://www.1tonmindre.dk/

 

Hele uge 39

Written by Tobias

This week we have worked with the robot. We started to go through all the tasks and talk about how we can solve them. Together, we have found many ways to solve the tasks. Then, we talked and discussed about which ways works and which doesn’t. We have chosen not to work on theory before the mentor meeting, 19th September. We have chosen this because we know that the mentor meeting will give us a lot of information on the theory task.

We have already built several robots. On the first robot we made, the motors were located straight up from each other. So there were not space enough for our genius click-system, light sensors, pressure sensors and the rest of the things that later will be placed on the robot.

Later - after a long discussion we found out that we had to create an entirely new robot. So we divorced it and built a new robot, where one of the motors was placed above the 2 others. Now the robot was too narrow, and we still had no space for all the things that later will be placed on the robot. So we built a third robot, where we placed the motors vertically, it looks promising.

 

18/9-08

Written by Pernille

Dear Diary

Now we begin in order to start on the project as early as possible. One of our pals has left the team because of the shift to a new school, many lessons and other leisure activities. We are now 9 back on the team. Today, we were only 6 who attended. We began by looking at the robot and the accessories and made it ready for next Monday.

Today we sorted all of our Lego in boxes and glasses. Then we started talking about the robot and how to programme it to solve the tasks. We started just as quiet talk about the sequence of tasks on the table. Then we built some of the things to the table.

14/9-08

Written by Jakob

The big news for to day was that the tasks for the FLL-competition and the robot-table were published. We talked about the different tasks. Some had already thought about how we can solve them. We also discussed, about splitting the theoretical and splitting the technical stuff that had to be made, so that it's not always the same persons who does the same, and then people doesn't change anything that already has been made. Most of us wanted to make the robot and program it. We didn't make any decision. We also wrote the tasks of the robot-table on a board. Now we are ready to drive!

12/9-08

Written by Mikkel

Our coach has received a request from LEGO, to ask if we would like to help them tell about FLL in the school, at a conference in Copenhagen for European headmasters from schools. We were a bit critical in the beginning because we could only bring 4 children and a coach, because pretty much everyone wanted to go. But It couldn’t be any different and we had to let the coincidence decided. Bo, Per, Tobias and I won. When we got there we had a chat with Hasse from Lego. We talked about what we were going to do at the conference and I took about three and a half hour to get it all planned. When we were done, it was far beyond our normal bedtime.

Next day we woke up early because we had to be at the “Falkonercenteret”, so we had time to be prepared. When we got there we started to unpack the things we needed to our presentation. First, Hasse, hold a presentation and after that we explained – in English – what FLL had taught us and showed them our robot from last year. We were in contact with many headmasters from all over Europe, and they were very interested in hearing about our own experiences with FLL and see our robot from last year, that drove us all the way to Tokyo.

 

2/9-08

Written by Pernille

Today is the 9th time, there is a FLL meeting. Almost every body was there. We must agree when and where to make FLL. We have to agree about the song and the music to the show. We are ready to get the assignment. Rules!! (There need to be a good reason, to miss a meeting, we should not spend time on private lives!). Have we examined all? Today we divorced all the Lego, so we are ready to build.

25/8-08

Written by Jeppe

Today is the 8th time we have a FLL meeting. We have as always distributed the tasks, between us. We were 12 to the meeting, so there was a lot to distribute. We have made everything from clothing-design, mascot ideas to webpage updates. We have also gotten an offer from LEGO about coming to a conference in Copenhagen, and show some of what we did last year. Of course we would love to do that, but on fortunately we can only take 3-4 members with us. So we are going to draw lots about who will be the lucky ones. Now it’s getting exiting, because soon we are going to know what the task is this year. They will be laid out on the internet, can be found on www.hjernekraft.org. Today we talked about a futurity meeting place, since we aren’t going on the same school anymore. It is possible we can borrow a room in a place called “Tostruphus”, and it would be great. There is room for both, the robot-table and computers. It’s easy for everybody to get there and there is internet, so it would just be great. That would be everything, there had happened since last meeting.

 

18/8-08

Written by Pernille

We started the meeting at half past four pm at Pers House. When everyone had arrived we started. We talked about the new things, there had happened and what we were going to do, during the rest of the day. Program is as following:
Song + Lyrics for our show.
Website.
New times for our meeting, where everyone has the possibility to join us.
Song + Lyrics: We agreed that everyone had to come up with a melody that we could use, because it is a little difficult to make the lyrics when you don’t have the melody. So we all had something to think about until next Monday.
Website: We upgraded the webpage, remove people whom where not on the team anymore and corrected the spelling.
Time for our Meeting: We agreed that, from now on, the FLL meetings is Monday or/and Friday because that’s the time when most of us are able to come. There is only a few who has some trouble with that, and we are just going to have to accept that we can’t all make to every meeting. It isn’t easy now that we are not at the same school anymore. After we had done all this, it was time for dinner, which was made by Pers mother Rie. Then we took a break and played a little soccer and talked and ate some ice-cream, and then the day was gone.

11/8-08

Written by Helene

Today we were a lot..! We were 14 people. We worked with a picture gallery to our pit-area, music and text to our song, we were also on the school to take some pictures of our other robot, the one we used for last years FLL, (but there were unfortunately no teacher or anything, they were all gone home). But then we thought that Rune maybe should go to the school the day after, so we called him and he told us that we could come the day after. We also made a little on our pit, there we made a picture gallery. There were pictures from last year and from the conference in Billund and in Legoland. The toughest was to make music and text to the song. But we did make a little, we have made some ideas to the text, but we haven't decided the song yet. We also ate dinner together, after that we went down and played football, and then the day was over.

4/8-08

Written by Helene

To day it is Monday the 4/8, and for the seventh time we are meeting to do FLL. We have just not been so many, we were only six. There are many that are still on vacation. Back to our daily program which is making pit and song.

To day we have found promotions for the pit, it will be black with a light chain, there will be a robot that is dancing/running/walking, and there also will be pictures of the team and where we are going and doing at FLL. We have thought about having souvenirs that we can give to those who comes and looks at our pit. Last year we had some windmills by Vestas, and thought about putting them up in the pit. We have also made some Lego-things and we are also going to make a movie, write textures and show our theory.

28/7-08

Written by Helene

Today it's 6th time we had meeting to make FLL I our summer vacation. Today we worked with our web page, because we need to edit something, and we have also copied the FLL thing to an USB stick.

Today we started thinking about, how our show and song should be. Now we are thinking about it, talking about it, but we can't decide how we wont it to be, but there is just a little time until we have to show it all. Today we have also worked at our theoretical presentation, and we also wrote all that we could find on a lot of web pages, we have been studying. Today we have been 8 people at FLL, because of the vacation, there is a lot on holiday, but we will continue our work until the FLL competition starts.

21/7-08

Written by Mikkel

Today we have presented our collected knowledge about the subject “Climate Connection” for each other. Now we are almost ready to get the assignment, we get the assignment on the 13th September, although there is a long time.

We have made our website better and added and more information about FLL. We have divided our theory details, in problems and solutions..

14/7-08

Written by Helene

Now is the third FLL-meeting started and after many discussions about, what we must do. We have distributed the tasks and have started the work. To day there were nine to FLL, and we work so concentrated as possible. We largely made the same as last time, and it is website spelling mistakes correction and alignment, journal writing and research :-) and as always it's moving forward. We have reached:

Research: We Google a lot, things that might have anything with the theme to do. We read a lot.

Homepage: We have edited on the whole homepage, written more on it, changes all the spelling mistakes we could find, and it all looks better and better.

Journal: We have written on the journal, asking the others about how long they reached, and we are again getting started on a completely incredible journal®

It was also to day we finally could put over journals on the homepage, since one of our mentors / our photographer / our IT man has created a new page where we can put our diaries. COOL. In the forum we also have our own internal weblog, where we can discuss and agree everything about FLL. This is useful, when we can’t meet everybody at all times.

We are pleased with the increasingly strong competition in Herning, and we are also ready to win. We look forward to meeting our opponents and we hope they look forward to meeting us.

7/7-08

Written by Jeppe

Now our second FLL meeting has started, and we have also split the tasks between us. We didn't make it to finish our homepage last year, so we are still updating it. We are still researching about the global warming and the climate changes, and then we write our diary here. Overall we haven't made a lot of changes since last time, but we have been moving on. In the following tasks something has happened:

The homepage: We have used much time on looking at the templates, and now we have finally agreed on one of them. Therefore we have begun to write what we need to write on our homepage and we are slowly making progress. Research: we have been searching a lot on the internet and found a lot about etc.: climate changes, global warming, greenhouse effect, CO2 release, meltdown of the ice cap and the polar-animals extinction. We already feel that we are almost ready for the competition, the subject is exciting and frightening, and there is a lot to work with. We have to be tough and cut of, or else our presentation will take to long time. Diary: we are making progress, we are walking around questioning all the other teams, and we have already written two “perfect” pages. As you can read, we are making progress, and that's good in many ways.

We are having a lot of fun while we work. Which reminds us of the 4 rules we have:
1: We have to have fun.
2: We have to work.
3: We can’t have so much fun, that we can't work.
4: We can’t work so much, that we can't have fun.

 

30/6-08

Written by Jeppe og Tobias

A new FLL season has started, and our team Dauerkraft is ready again for the second year in a row. We have made the word Dauerkraft ourselves. It consists of two German words, "Dauer" and "kraft" which mean "renewable" and "energy" representing renewable energy. Last year's theme was renewable energy, and we have not the heart to change the name because we believe that renewable energy is one of the solutions to global warming and the climate problems which the world faces.

Last season we had FLL as elective in school, but now the class is splits into more schools throughout the council. It will give some problems, we know that well, but we do not give up.

We have decided to work at each other's homes. We hope that it will go well and that we find a more permanent place to work. Our teachers, Rune and Janus, helped us a lot last season, but unfortunately the teachers support is something we have lost. But our parents are ready to give us full support. Michael, Jacob's father, has promised to be our coach.

We get our theoretical task and robot path, 13th September, so there is long time from now. We are started to prepare ourselves, we have done a little online researching, and we have already found a lot about global warming and climate problems. Last season we made the website www.dauerkraft.dk. Now we have made a backup of it and started all over.

The team now consists of 15 persons, and they are: Andreas (AG), Bo (Bob), Emma (Emsen), Helene (Lonni), Henriette (Henri), Jakob (Jarl), Jeppe (Klemmer), Louise (Lulle), Marie (Libber), Mikkel (Lekkim), Morten, Per, Pernille (Chill Pernill), Simon, Tobias (Bajer).

We know that the team ultimately have to be reduced to 10, but we have decided that all can be in the team. We will solve the problem later, if it is still a problem. All for now.