Today was our third day of robotics training in Eilat. After a very intensive building process, the construction of the robot was completed this afternoon. Tonight, the students from Goldwater and CHAT had a chance to go on a cruise which departed from the Eilat harbour. We chatted, relaxed and had a nice Israeli style dinner. There was also a beautiful view of the lit Boardwalk and Jordanian mountains in the distance. Tonight I am beginning to realize how amazing it has been to get a chance to meet the Goldwater students throughout the trip. There are few programs where Israeli and Canadian students of the same age can spend time together and get to know each other well. This experience has made the trip amazing.
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Tuesday was a day filled with a lot of struggles and hard work but in the end, it was very rewarding. We started the day off with a few parts assembled but no mechanism was fully put together and nothing was mounted to the chassis. Once we arrived at Ben Gurion University in the morning, we knew we had a lot of work to do and immediately got started. First, our team finished up the retrieving mechanism by screwing on the final parts and then we mounted it on to the chassis. Next we began working on the launch mechanism, which was the most essential part of our robot. When we began building it we were very worried that we would be unable to finish in time however, we all worked hard and efficiently and managed to finish the whole mechanism in 3 hours. We then had 3 hours to mount everything on to the main chassis. As a team, we accomplished this very quickly and had our robot up and running with time to spare. Then, we began to test the robot and encountered a couple problems, the biggest of which was that we had sharp edges sticking out which led to the ball popping every time it passed through the robot. Luckily, the solution to this was very easy and all we needed to do was cover the sharp edges in duct tape in order to prevent the ball from pooping. Once we fixed those problems our robot was finally finished and we were able to go the boat cruise!
After a good night's rest knowing the robots awaited our return to the Eilat BGU campus, we headed to the campus for the second day of the big build. With the final competition fast approaching, each team got to work, completing the chassis in the first half of the day, and beginning with the actual development of the rest of the bot in the afternoon. Each team worked hard for the remainder of the day, using power tools such as the jigsaw, handheld circular saw, and various drills to piece together the final parts of the robot's physical components. While the "mechanics" built the physical robot, the programming team began to program the robot to take commands from the controller to be used in the competition. By the end of the day (22:15), each team had reached about the same point in the build, with most physical components assembled, electrical components mounted, and programs written. Overall, today was a very physically and mentally demanding, but interesting and educational day.
Today, both teams continued working hard on their robots for the Falafel FRC Challenge. Team A's main task for the day was to finish constructing their shooting mechanism, and to mount their ball-storage system to the chasis. Team B's was to finish their shooting mechanism, and construct their ball transfer mechanism that connects the storage component to the shooting component. Both teams worked from 8:20 this morning until 6:30 this evening, with only a short lunch break. By the end of our workday, both teams had exceeded expectations and had each build a remote controlled robot that stores four balls, and then transfers them to a shooting mechanism to be shot into a net. At the same time, a few members from each team worked on a poster and presentation of our project. Overall, it was a very fun and productive day at Ben Gurion University.
By Ben Eisen Day 2 of the robotics competition consisted of finishing the chassis, mounting and connecting the electronics, and assembling the loading and launching mechanisms. First was the chassis, which involved lengthening the chains, attaching them to the sprockets, and then locking them into the gear boxes. Next was the electronics. We needed to find a way to mount the battery, power distribution board, motor controllers, and the main controller. All these must be connected by wires in a specific way and we needed to fit them within a small space on the chassis. The loading mechanism was a chute made of wood and metal, with a motor controlled wheel to send the balls into the shooting mechanism one by one. In the shooting mechanism, the balls are squeezed through by two spinning wheels and shot out up a ramp. Overall, the a long day of work allowed us to progress greatly and put us on track to finish the building phase and begin the programming phase.
Today after lunch, we visited the Mecorot water treatment plant. This plant purifies and desalinates water for use in Eilat. It was very interesting to learn what the plant does. We were told that water is drawn from well systems and from the ocean. On a scale rating the waters cleanliness, the water from the well got a 23 000ppm rating and the water from the ocean got a 60 000ppm. In the plant, they purify the water down to a rating of 1000ppm or less for drinking. They do this by first pumping the water through sand filters and then through a very thick filter to get rid of any harmful particles. It was very interesting to learn how desalination works and seeing it put to use to help Israel with the problem of fresh water.
Today we returned to Ben Gurion University to continue working on our robots, to get as much done as we can with time still tight. Both teams were able to finish their drive trains, and got work done on programming. Also, both teams got to work on preparing their mechanisms for shooting the balls. Both groups went through extensive debate on what the best idea was for shooting, and after all of the debate both teams decided on, and started building their design.
I learned about LabView today, which is the programming software we are using and got to try to connect our robot to the computer so it can move without being connected by a wire and sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not. It was a lot of fun! Today we woke up at 5:45 in the morning to travel to Eilat. We arrived at Eilat at 11:30, we had a lunch and went swimming at a beach then went we to the Ben Gurion University. At the University we began working on our falafel competition robots. The teams completed the design for their robots and began working on the driving component of the robots. At night we went to the Goldwater high school where we played team building games with our Israeli counterparts.
On Shabbat after Shul, we went to the Montefiore windmill and discussed the history of it, and its’ importance. After, we went to the Prime Minister’s house and saw someone protesting outside his house for 111 days. We then went back to the hotel and had lunch, followed by a tish and two D’var Torahs from the Gap Year CHAT students. I then slept for 3 hours during the afternoon until Havdalah. After Havdalah, we went to Ben Yehudah and had dinner there. After we saw Bridge of Spies, which was in a huge movie theatre, with lots of mannequins of famous movie characters. After the movie we we went back to the hotel and I went straight to sleep, because we had to get up at 5:45 to go to Eilat tomorrow.
Today, we had the honour of reuniting with some CHAT alumni who took a gap year this year. They all graduated from CHAT last year and decided to spend the next year in Israel, either at a yeshiva, kibbutz or a mix of yeshiva and university. They joined us for Friday night and joined us in our evening service and tish. We also had rotating one-on-one conversations with all of the gap year students while discussing our opinions on Jewish values and education in general. I was able to learn a lot from these students and was very proud that these upstanding students were graduates of my current school. The next morning, we went to a modern orthodox service for the shabbat shacharit. It was interesting to see a functioning shul at the other end of the world that had so many similarities and differences to my shul. The people around us were mainly from Israel but they were all fascinated by our program and the trip that we are on. Grade 12 student, Jacob Beallor, was asked to bless the congregation as he was a Cohen. He gratefully accepted and preformed the Birkat Cohanim in front of the congregation. We were very thankful to the Rabbi afterward and were appreciative of the way in which we were willingly accepted into their service.
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AuthorThis blog is written by the grade 10, 11, and 12 students from TCK and TCW who are on the ISRAEL MINI-MESTER EXPERIENCE TRIP focusing on Robotics in Israel. ArchivesCategories |