Space Camp Robotics

[SpaceCanada]

As it hasn't been mentioned yet, I wanted to put a huge shout out to Daniel and Wesley at the Space Camp Robotics Lab. They have a really good program over there and were able to challenge some of our expert programmers and LEGO builders. I can only imagine a full week camp in their lab would be a very fun experience.

Back in 2004, our robotics lab was a HUGE FAIL for several reasons: lack of challenge (building and programming) and lack of interest by many, plus some quarrels going on about other things. It was a disaster. This year was a 180* flip, and then some. For perspective, in previous years our team was spending every spare minute in the orbiter sims trying to master checklists and procedures. This time, many of us spent a significant amount of spare time in the robotics lab, polishing up our satellite model or fine-tuning their rover driving skills.

They have a good thing going on there! Now I need to find some photos of our epic cube sats.

[gt0163c]

Can you describe some of what you all did in the robotics lab? What were the task and goals and how did all of that tie into the missions?

When I was there for adult ASA in October, I saw the room and some of the equipment but we didn't do anything with it. I was a bit surprised to see that most of the Mindstorms were the older NXT models rather than the newer EV3s. I'm guessing part of it is that many of the models would have to be rebuilt and programming redone due to the minor differences in the EV3 system (large motors are a slightly different shape and size, medium motors are completely new) and major differences in the software (although I find it much more intuitive and even my younger FIRST Lego League team members who have no programming experience have been able pick up the basics quickly).

[SpaceCanada]

They use the older Mindstorm NXT with the younger students. We used EV3s for our projects.

We had to build cube sats that were used in our Mars mission to relay communications for our rover. We had to build two satellites within certain parameters: size, technology, sensors, retractable solar panels, etc. Programming included reading certain light combinations, extending/retracting the solar array, maintaining orientation of our communications dish, and a few other things. Both satellites also had to undergo vibration testing to make sure they were durable enough to make it to Mars.

There was another component with the rover and driving it on Mars. Selected team members were chosen to drive the rover and underwent extensive training on the XBOX controls and a custom computer program to maneuver the rover (a pre-made design), collect samples, and relay video.

Based on what items we were able to complete on the cube sats and rover training, our mission would have different capabilities. For instance, if only one of our satellites passed all its testing, we could only get rover access half the time because the other half it would be outside of satellite range. If we got both done, we had 100% rover access. Other components of the satellites would control how many lines of communication we got on our mission. The more communications EVAs we did on our orbiter missions and the more items we completed on our cube sats all influenced the number of communication lines. The number of solar cell EVAs and satellite components we completed would affect how much power we had on various missions and what capabilities we would have on Mars. And then, of course, space ghosts would inform us that storms ruined some of our stuff. That's just how space ghosts work... we cannot have everything perfect, now can we?

It was a pretty epic week. Camp really outdid themselves on making everything cohesive, culminating to the Mars mission.

[gt0163c]

That's really cool. And it's exciting that they're putting more into the Mars mission and tying it in with the rest of the week's activities.
At Adult ASA in October, the Orion mission felt just sorta tacked on at the end of the week, wasn't related to the shuttle missions and, in a lot of ways, the different parts (station, capsule and even MOCR in some senses) were not well connected. So it's good to see that those are all coming together.

[SpaceCanada]

I'm not sure if what we had is a glimpse of what's to come. It was a custom program designed for our group, but may reappear in similar form down the road.