Saturday, October 29, 2011

Our visits with the experts

Here are some historical captures of events from the recent past :)
Dr. Meyer in his office showing R, E, and D one his insect trays

 Dr. Meyer is an entymologist at the Christopher Newport  University. He met with part of the E.I crew,  answering all their questions on both bug and bat behaviors. 
      Then Dr. Meyer showed the students some of his insect collection, and talked about proper archiving and the need for insect repellent tabs in your insect boards.
       
 

  Dr. Meyer helped the EI team work out the size of the trough they wanted for the bats, learned about edging it to prevent other animals form using it and during that discussion Dylan came up with the  idea for bright lights to attract the bats to the tough. 
Dr. Judy M meet with the kids in the lobby of the Va Living Museum to discuss their latest idea for the White Nose Syndrome cure for bats.  It's wasn't great news at the start, as the kids learned their latest idea of using the anti-fungal additive to a water trough wasn't going to work.  But the kids had done a lot of research on WNS and kept asking questions until it occurred to Ezra to use one of their ideas (the aerosol spray concept) to hold a vaccine to reach the bats as they came out of the cave.  Turns out a Geomyces vaccine is one of the better ideas researchers have, but they don't have a good delivery method.
  The kids regrouped after thanking Dr. Judy and voted to ditch the trough and bright lights from their cure concept.   They liked the idea of spraying the cure.  Robert and Olivia mentioned using an ultrasonic sensor to turn on and off the spray as the bats came in and out.  Abby added that it could be set on a timer so it didn't go off during the day when other animals might go in or out of the caves.  Ezra liked the idea of the timer and, knowing that bats fly at dusk, suggested it should be connected remotely to the weather stations so that the timer would adjust to the growing and shrinking hours of daylight.
  A new idea is born and really best of all, the new idea and change of cure slipped into the practiced skit quite nicely.  A lot of participants lines didn't have to change at all.  Great research guys.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

SO far......

So far- you guys have completed 11 missions!
Truck grab (95% success rate)
corn harvester (100% of the time the corn hits the mat, less of the time it ends up back in base)
the white cooler (a 45% success rate),
the rat mission ( 80% success rate),
the yellow ball, (99% success rate),
Blue ball (95% success rate),
the fish grab (about 90% success rate),
pink virus tray tip (about 85% success),
blue virus tray spill (98%, but less success right now than that catching the viruses ion the side box)
Table food delivery (99% making it to the table with varied levels of success getting more or less of the food to stay on the table)

In the works is - the ice cream, pizza mission and making it to the east wall.

                 Besides some incredible displays of programming,
                    You created a unique solution to a difficult food and water safety issue.  
                         You emailed and visited experts, using their tips to help your craft a fabulous and meaningful
                              script for your presentation.
                                 You have managed to build your team up & work together as a unit.


 We only have 9 days left before the tournament, but you guys are rocking it!
We need to work on our pre and post judging interviews, and we need to determine which method of robot running we're using at the robot game table- two for the whole time, or switching out to run your favorite missions each session. Looking forward to printing those t-shirts tomorrow!

Some photos from the season



I found these gems emptying my photo card.    Working, working, working.