Ideas for Robots

Skype conference on March 28th, 2019

For Thursday we had planed a internet meeting with pupils from Spain, Norway and Finland in order to hear each teams ideas and to discuss them. Before the conference we were given a tour through the new arduino lab aka “robots´r ´us Headquarters” by Mr Schopohl and Mr Gottbehuet. Afterwards Mrs Auer led the meeting.

We had intended using the etwinnig platform, but it didn´t work correctly and we switched to skype.

The connection with Norway and Fuerteventura worked, but the Finnish students couldn´t join us, because of an incompatible skype version.

The German students presented their ideas: team Lofotbotich ,represented by Konrad, Dorothee and Michl, started, followed by Suvarkhan from team International Robots Squad. Afterwards it was the turn of the Worldwide Team with Tayfun. Arian from Team IRG7 closed the German part.

Our ideas were well received and the Spanish students presented their ideas:

Bea and team IRG7 presented two varieties of tyres. They demonstrated each tyres pros and cons via video and on the actual tyres:

• Normal road tyres are smaller and lighter than others. Therefore they have less rolling resistance with saves energy.

• Offroad tyres are heavier and bigger, this means more rolling resistance and therefore a bigger battery pack. But they guaranty safe travel over rocks and other obstacles.

The spanish students from the teams International Robots Squad and Worldwide Team than introduced a joined idea: They thought about the robots design and came up with a prototype build in form of a lorry with a dipper arm in front like a wheel loader. The dipper arms lower part consists of a kind of mesh. In this manner the cans/bottles stay in the dipper arm and the sand can run through. When the dipper arm is full the arm moves backwards and dumps its load in a container on the lorry. While collecting trash the dipper arms height above ground is controlled by a sensor. The dipper arm and the wheels are driven by separate motors.

The Spanish members of team Lofotbotich presented a totally new idea for driving and steering: they want to drive and steer each wheel with a separate motor using the arduino programm. And their gripping device shall emerge from the robots underside.

The Norwegian students from all teams had worked together and developed one design for the Robot: they proposed building a lorry with a crane mounted. The lorry pulls a trailer with one axle for collecting the trash.

As mentioned the Finnish Students couldn´t join us because of technical problems. But they will share their ideas with us in the next meeting.

Several teams have uploaded their sketches and ideas on etwinning.

At the end of the meeting we asked all students to bring their sketches and prototypes with them for the workshop in Dortmund. We also asked to send any CAD drawings so that we can prepare parts in advance.

We all saw that all team members have developed interesting and diverse ideas for the robots. It will be a lot of work (and fun) to agree on the final design and make one prototype for each team in Dortmund.

Therefore we are looking forward to being hosts to the international teams in Dortmund and to get some work done there.

Minutes written by Michl Vierhaus (student)