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Crestwood FLL Team

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In addition to its experimental FTC team, Crestwood Middle School is also home to two FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams. The original team was founded in 2010. As with the other FLL teams, they attended the FLL competition at Grandville High School in both 2010 and 2011, and won the “Inspiration Award” for their team’s effort in 2011. Since the EKHS team was founded in 2010, it has provided and received assistance from all the middle school teams, including Crestwood, and students from the Crestwood FLL team can go through further robotics programs like the Crestwood FTC and EKHS teams. In 2012, a second FLL team was created because of the high number of students who wanted to participate.

The team meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:15 to 5:15 during the season.

More information on the FLL program can be found here, and the team’s school coach can be contacted at wendi.vogel@kentwoodps.org.

Here are some pictures from the latest season:

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FIRST Lego League

Competition Schedule

2012 Competitions

Gull Lake District Competition

 

West Michigan District at GVSU Allendale Competition

 

Michigan State Competition

Competition Information

Every so often, FIRST will also publish amendments to the rules, known as “team updates”. Read them here.

The game for this year, “Rebound Rumble,” requires the building and programing of a robot that can shoot a ball into four different baskets at three different heights. The first 15 seconds of the game is called “hybrid mode” where the Kinect Motion Sensor is used to control the robot. After hybrid, the next mode is called “tele-op.” During this time, the goal is to make as many baskets as possible. Finally, in the last 20 seconds, robots need to balance on the Coopertition Bridge. If robots from both Alliances are represented in the middle bridge, the robots will earn Coopertition Points. At the end, all points are totaled and the winner is announced!

Rebound Rumble video © FIRST

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2011-2012 Gallery

Gull Lake Competition

Community Outreach

4th of July Parade

 

Build Season

Kickoff at GVSU College of Engineering

Our Robot

 

Fabrication Team

 

Teams we support

Our Middle School FTC Team

 

Sponsors

GE Aviation Systems of Grand Rapids

JC Penney

 

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Western Michigan District Competition at GVSU

The West Michigan Regional FIRST Robotics Competition was our second competition of 2012, on March 16th and 17th. It was be hosted in the GVSU Allendale Campus gymnasium. Although the team performed well, and made it relatively high in the initial rankings, we did not make it to the competition finals. Despite our functional autonomous mode and generally well-made robot, which allowed us to reach third place at one point, problems with the robot’s balance led to it frequently tipping over, and that and similar mechanical problems cost us our success at the competition. However, we learned from the experience, and the team had a good time. It was a very busy competition, and we are pleased with its overall results.

Their website is located at www.westmichiganfirst.org.

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Our Robot 2011 – 2012

After the kickoff at Grand Valley State University, we met as a team to discuss strategy and key requirements for our robot. Some key points:

  • We wanted to have a functional basketball-shooter, rather than play defense.
  • Our primary method of crossing the court would be running the bump, rather than using the bridges.
  • We wanted a wide robot, rather than a long one, so we could potentially fit three to a bridge for maximum points.
  • We wanted to be able to balance the bridge, using a device that would help balance the robot as well as feed balls.

The resulting robot was tentatively named Nado II.

We split into sub-teams, who worked on different parts of the robot. The main teams were for the chassis, loader, shooter, and bridge-tipper. All of the teams made CAD drawings and built simple prototypes out of wood before work on the final robot began.

The wooden chassis model, with the six-wheel design we chose.

Building the launcher prototype.

More assembly of the robot prototype.

 

Once the prototypes were finalized, work on the robot proper could begin.

Assembling the metal chassis.

The early frame, completed.

Assembling the wires and motors before final assembly.

Bumpers are robot parts, too!

 

Soon, we were able to begin assembling the various parts.

Working to assemble the final robot.

The “firing tower” added to the base.

Adding wires and motors to the completed frame.

Wire work continues.

So many wires, so little time.

A close-up of our diligent electrical workers.

Meanwhile in the shop…

Assembling the launcher mechanism.

We need bumpers, too!

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