We were hindered!

For more than 3 months we were unable to use our territories. We were evacuated to PLMUN. Because PLMUN was not our home we were unable to find any venue for us to carry on with our work. Due to this progress was not possible! We had no progress at all. Our school was flooded with water but to us it was flooded with time consuming waste. Imagine how it is to ride a mattress or even just water gallons tied together to get to school!

Not only did the water hinder us but also the time table itself! We are a group of teenagers who are not all in the same year. It was such a bother that we had shifting schedules and it was irrevocable! But as soon as the waters lowered it was already sembreak and another Hindrance has arrived, The OIC.

Blogger Labels: Flood,PLMUN,venue,Imagine

 

our zigbees are talking and our robot is now working :) hooray we are so happy that we tested our robot out in the school covered court. hooray. we are now ready for the contest. :)

today, sir eman finished editing the picture of our robot that is to be submitted for the TR secretariat for posting on the TR facebook page.

we were very happy with sir eman's work. it looks like it was professionally edited.

then came the part when we have to come up with a name for our robot. here's a list of some of the names that we have thought and their etymology or meaning:

• bobot = bobong robot
• iBox = in honor of the box where the kit of parts are placed when it was given to us. and also of the iPhone which needs to be 'jailbroken' 
• wall-e - we were planning on making our robot look like wall-e but the costs of making it happen didn't allow us to continue
• steve jobs - in honor of the apple ceo who passed away just recently. 
• theCUBE - the most unlikely name we thought we'd be using but that's the name that

stuck and so we ended up using that one. hehe. though upon thinking it up further, our robot's main structure isn't cubic in form but rather a rectangular prism. nevertheless, we've sized it so that it would fit exactly inside a 2ft by 2ft cube box =))

after the demo by apc we asked for their assistance with regards to the build of our robot, we asked for help regarding our motor driver and they have willingly offered their assistance if ever we have inquiries. so far we are grateful for the things we have learned from their demonstration today.

and so here's a pic of the H-Bridge Motor Driver that the people at e-gizmo had offered us as replacement to the default motor drivers issued to us by DOST. the motor driver works simple and effective. the only drawback that we see is that it can only power 1 motor, and so we have to buy 2 of them to drive our 2 wiper motors. it costs around php800++ and therefore mus spend more than php1600++ to make our motors work. hope this comes out as a good investment in the long run.

  






  

Teacher's day! today we gave Sir Eman, Sir Rico and Sir Alfaro a cake to say our thanks for being so patient with us and for guiding and understanding us in the trials that we are facing with the club. For all the laughs and the smiles we've shared together. Truly, our stay in the Jailbreakers wouldn't be complete and fun without them.

Thank you Sir Rico, Sir Eman & Sir Jerry! Be the best teachers, coaches and advisers that you are to us!

mang mar working on the fabrication of  one of the parts needed by our robot

ron is being helpful

mang mar did a very swell job in making our plans come to fruition. we were very happy with the results and we can't wait to test out our robot the next day.

MunSci Jailbreakers' Logo Depicting a Giant Robot breaking out of the New Bilibid Prison

Initially, the club was called the MunSci Robotics Club but out of necessity of the Tagisang Robotics 2011 tournament in which each team must come up with a team name. The name we thought must reflect the region/city from which we came from and must be able to show the core values of the team. We came up with various names but one such name that struck a chord with the group is the name Jailbreakers. The name was just right. It tells so much about the group and many things more.

Jailbreakers because, Muntinlupa Science High School which has been dormant from robotics contests for a long time has come up at last to break free of the chains of dormancy and show the country and the world just what the students of Muntinlupa are capable of. The over-sized and smiling robot symbolizes the great zeal and passion that the team has for robotics and to show our dedication to break through over any obstacle, big or small.

 

today the munsci jailbreakers team went to the division science fair that was held at cupang elementary school. the team went on to demonstrate and to showcase to the students of muntinlupa their skills in robotics by demonstrating our robots:

• the stair climber – which ranked among the first during the preliminaries of the 10th PRO
• the puppy bot – an autonomous puppy robot that can explore it’s environment via the different sensors attached to it.
• the remote controlled clawbot – a remote controlled car with a claw-like device attached to it that can be driven around and ordered to pick up and deliver small objects using its vice-like claw grip.
• line tracer bot – a simple line tracer robot with which we have a hand-on with the elementary students to introduce them to robotics and to basic programming.

even though it was a very rainy day and we all went back to school tired, it was so much fun since we were able to share with the elementary children of muntinlupa what we know on robotics and somehow have developed within them an appreeciation of modern technology and its role in our lives.

 

sir rico and sir eman today went to mang mhon's electrical shop to have the wiper motors diagnosed, we have observed that the motors do not run at the same speed in forward and backward modes. this poses a big problem to us since the motors are oriented facing each other, so one must go forward while the other one goes backward. and with what we saw, moving forward would make the robot curve instead of moving straight.

the solution is to go to mang mhon's electrical shop. mang mhon is the local expert in all things electrical and the electrical team together with sir rico and sir eman went there and have the motors fixed.

after a while of tinkering and studying the gears and behavior of the motor, mang mar was able to make them move relatively at the same rate. this is good news and puts our team a step further in completing our robot.

A little video I made to show our stair climbing robot. This is MunSci's entry to the 10th Philippine Robotics Olympiad's Regular Category for the High School level with a Stair Climbing Robot.The challenge is that the robot must be able to ascend and descend stairs with gradually increasing step height and at the same time be able to carry on a basket a passenger (an egg) throughout the mission.

The robot made it among the first during the preliminaries and landed 12th overall in the finals. still besting other schools with prior experience in robotics. The video was taken last September 6, 2011 during the PRO team's training for the finals match which will be held the following day.

Erratum: Checked felta's website and we are actually in the 18th slot during the finals. Still not bad for a first try. :)

MunSci Jailbreakers T-shirt - Php 300 front print only / Php 350 for with back print


MunSci Jailbreakers Hoodie - Php 1500 (Comes in White Color only)

jan keith teaches the other members of the tagisang robotics team the basics of programming in C language. his lessons come right after class.

jan keith, our dedicated team captain, though quite eccentric at times is a genius at programming and a master of the C language, he can cook up any program that is requested of him. when something needs to be fixed with programs it's jan keith that must be called