PIVOT - Angry Man with Key at Door - by Walker

Click to view animation:

PIVOT - Guy with 2 little guys

Click to view animation

NXC to program NXT Brick

NXC = Not eXactly C

Bricx Command Center is a tool available for programming the NXT using a "C"-like programming language. We spoke to a person named Nate who had used a similar environment to program the RXC (Yellow brick).

For MacOSX too - HERE.

Here is a sample program that starts a servo motor connected to port A to start running forward at 75% power for 4 seconds. Then the same server motor is told to rotate in reverse at 100% power for 3 seconds.

task main()
{
OnFwd(OUT_A, 75);
Wait(4000);
OnRev(OUT_A, 100);
Wait(3000);
}

Tucson Technics at ASU JFLL Expo

Congratulations Walker, Lahiru and Griffin! You did great at Arizona State University (ASU) today.

They arrived at 9:00AM and setup their "Fit Dentist" model and show-me board.

There were about 7 teams from all over Arizona. Tucson, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Scottsdale and more.

There was a lot of excitement about the "Fit Dentist" model. Many children and adults stopped by the table.

Awarded: Class Act '2010

Southern Arizona JFLL - Fit Dentist

Way to go Tucson Technics!!

You did great today at Wakefield Middle School.

Special thanks to Craig Wittman and associates. You put on an amazingly well organized event today!

Moshi's Hand demo

Thank you Moshi for showing us your LEGO Robotic Hand/Arm

LEGO Linear Actuator

Product ID: W970124
Price: $15.00

Found on LEGO Education site HERE

Spelling Words - Can you spell them?

Generosity - Tax Credit Donations

Hello All,

Just wanted to take a moment to thank all of those families who have made Tax-Credit Donations to the Tucson Technics.

We have requested a list from the Administration to enable us to acknowledge your generosity.

Please let us know if you, your family, or anyone you know has donated funds to our club.

In these challenging economic times we understand your sacrifice and we are extremely grateful.

Tax-Credit Form

JFLL Competition at Wakefield Middle School

Sat the 4th we start at 9 AM

Thank you Cathy Poisel!

Today Cathy Poisel came to speak to the Tucson Technics about the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at TMC.

Cathy is a NICU Nurse. She cares for some of the most precious and most vulnerable patients - tiny babies.

She used a PowerPoint presentation to describe the Biomedical Engineering equipment in the NICU. These include:

• Ventilator
• Isolette
• Giraffe Bed
• Warmers
• Electrocardiogram Monitors
• Blood Oxygen monitor
• Intravenous Devices (IV)
• PICC Lines

She also described some of the challenges facing premature babies. When they are born they may be too weak to breath or eat or move. Nurses and other caregivers help them to survive and grow to a point where they may leave the NICU and go on to live healthy lives.

Thank you Cathy for spending time with our club. We all learned so many things that we will remember!

When Giants Attack by Walker (PIVOT)

Click on image to view animation:

Police Gunning Scene by Walker (PIVOT)

Click to view animation:

Nikki's Creation

Here is an amazing creation using Pivot:

Lego Attack

Click to view animation

Photos from Field Trip to U.A. BME

BME - BioMedical Engineering

Biomedical Engineering at U.A.

Thank you to Dr. Jennifer Barton at University of Arizona's BIO5 Center (Keating building)

Great presentation on Biomedical Engineering (BME).



Jennifer Barton
Head of Biomedical Engineering
Asst. Direcotr BIO5 Institute
(520)4116
barton@u.arizona.edu

Engineering - solve problems and build things
skills in math/physics

Bio Eng - biology and medicine
Directly and Positiveliy affect human health
Diverse
Multidisciplinary teams (doctors, physicians, physiologist, environmentalists)
Quantitative (Math)
Design-Driven

Doctors help thousands
BioEngs' help millions!!!

Electronics - mapping the brain and monitoring the body
Prosthetic devices - artificial legs / arms
Nuclear
…



Artificial knee - of bone - seat better - preventing infections - very sterile O.R. (stainless steel and teflon)
Stresses and loads, surgical techniques

Cochlear implants - help deaf people hear - bypass damaged parts of ear
tissue engineering - human ear grafted onto normal ear - used to grow ears.
Tissues are very robust. - Tissue Engineering making parts with real tissue

Synthetic Skin - for burn victims
Heart Valves
Deep brain stimulation to suppress tremors - current to portions of the brain.

Funny picture of Homer Simpson (MRI showing his tiny brain :-))

MRI - of skull and brain - see many folds in brain

Heart moves like wringing out a towel
Shows motion
Contrast agent placed in blood then a picture
AORTA - pipe to take blood from heart to rest of body - showed us an artificial aorta (big)

What do BME's do?
Reaseearch - new materials
Computer modeling
new diagnostic imaging systems

Most artificial hands are claws that are mechanically controlled
Scientists vs. Engineers -
Scientists in lab
Engineers have to take ideas from lab and make it so it is applicable to others - need light weight, low power, durable, etc.

Communication aids for the handicapped - moving with their eyes.

Top Acieve of 20th century
Imaging
Health Technologies

What do BME's do?
45% go on after undergrad to grad or PhD
Others go to Law or MBA (Business)
Jobs: Industry, Other, Academia, Consulting, Government (FDA)

BME Companies in Tucson:
Roche-Ventana Medical Sysetms
Sanofi-Aentis
SEBRA
SynCardia Systems
www.bio-sa.org and www.azbio.org
(also Raytheon and ??)


http://bme.engr.arizona.edu
http://bme.engr.arizona.edu/undergraduates/

Ventricular assist device - helps your heart (for emergency use)

Too many hamburgers or smoking
- plaque build up - snake in


She works on an imaging device - takes light and puts it into tissue and looks into
calous layer, sweat ducts

Session 4 Challenges - Color Time

ShooterBot

Color Sorter

JFLL Meeting

Great meeting on Saturday! We talked about the Body Forward challenge and Biomedical Engineering.

• Kinison
• Gabe
• Leheru
• Andrew
• Walker

Thank you parents - Jennifer, Gunner, Don and Robbie

2010 Tax Credit Form

Can be downloaded HERE

Please consider submitting your Tax Credit donations to the SSAB - Tucson Technics club.

Learning resources

Accord Education

Advanced Math and Science Program (AMSP)

MathMatters (4th / 5th)

Scratch by MIT

CodeBlocks C++

http://competitions.accordeducation.org

Gauss League

Learn Scratch

Meeting cancelled due to Teacher Conferences

Today's Tucson Technics session is cancelled due to school teacher conferences.

JFLL Meeting last Saturday

A good start. We went over some of the mini-challenges available to be used in developing ideas. We discussed Biomedical Engineering.

Hopefully, more will come to next meeting. :-)

JFLL meeting at SSAB - 12:30 Saturday

Saturday we have a meeting at SSAB at 12:30 for Junior FIRST LEGO League (JFLL).

This year is about Biomedical Engineering.

Hope you can make it!

NXT Bricks

Kinison



Jordan

Robot from Kinison

Assignment 3

Session 3 Challenges - Diameter

Diameter


Rotations


Calculated Rotations

JFLL Anyone?

Yes, we are registered with Junior FIRST LEGO League (JFLL). Who wants to participate? Let me know if you are interested.

This year's topic: Biomedical Engineering

Challenge Material

Serious Play Elements List

Poster
Coloring Poster

Serious Play

Coaches Guide

Field Trip to the U.A. - Saul Griffith

Last night part of the Tucson Technics went on a field trip to the University of Arizona (U.A.). There was a speaker named Saul Griffith and he talked about energy.



Useful/Related Sites:

OtherLab

WattzOn

Energy Literacy

OnYaCycles

Makani Power

How Toons

Email Saul

Here are some pictures taken at the event:

Saul Griffith and Walker

Jerzy W. Rozenblit and Walker

Professor and Head of Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Matt Bunting and Walker



More Pictures:

Value of Tucson Technics

The other day during the 2nd session of the season a remarkable thing was taking place.

One group, Team Blind, was solving a challenge but things were not working out the way they had expected (a servo motor was not working). They called me over to have a look.

The conversation went something like this:

Team: "Our motor isn't working."

Coach: "What do you think the problem is?"

Team: Stopped looking at me and shifted their focus to the NXT Brick, the Servo Motor and the program they had written. Immediately, something had happened. Things got quiet for several seconds. Then came a flurry of responses...

Team: "Maybe the motor is broken?"

Coach: "If you suspect the motor is broken what can you do?"

Team: "Try another motor?"

Coach: "OK"

.... So they tried another motor. Same results - no action.

Team: "Hmmmm?"

Team: "How about the cable?" (the said amongst themselves - coach out of the loop :-))

... they tried a different cable connecting the servo motor to the NXT Brick - still not working.

Team: "How about the NXT Brick?" (so they grabbed a different NXT Brick, downloaded their program - but motor still not working)

Team: "Hmm?"

Team: "Let's look at the program! Yeah, good idea!"

...so they looked at their program, they isolated the motor control section by removing other portions of the program. They ran their program again, and....still not working.

Team: "Let's look at the motor icon in the programming software. A-HA! Here's the problem, we are telling the computer (NXT Brick) to communicate with the servo motoron port A but our servo motor is connected to port C!"

Team: Changed the cable to connect to port C on the NXT brick. They downloaded the program and it ran beautifully!

Team: "Awesome! It works! Hey Coach, look at this!"

Why am I telling you this story? This is solving problems. This is using what information is available, dissecting that information, reprocessing the information and solving the problem. This is engineering!

These kids were proud of themselves and rightly so! They solved it together as a team.

NXT Brick (Computer)

Servo Motor:

Brick animation image

Shop LEGO assistance contact info...

For Assistance in English:
call us: Toll-free 1-800-835-4386, EST Monday-Friday 8am to 10pm; Saturday & Sunday 10am to 6pm.

Spoiler Alert!

Word Search Spoiler - Click to see it

Robots!

Nikki

Lahiru

Jordan
Ben

Andrew

Walker

Session 2 - Challenges

Today was the 2nd session of the Fall Season. We went over the various components of the LEGO Mindstorms NXT Kits, including:

• NXT Brick (computer, display, buttons, ports)
• Servo Motor
• Touch Sensor
• Color Sensor
• Ultrasonic Sensor
• USB Cable
• Sensor/Motor cables

We learned the basics of programming the Mindstorms NXT.

The 11 members were broken up into 3 teams. Team A, Team B, and Team C.

Teams were given mission cards. They built each project and had them reviewed. This became competitive as teams tried to rapidly complete the missions and move onto the next.

Here are the challenges:

Motor Challenge 1 - Rotations Forward



Motor Challenge 2 - Rotations Forward/Backwards


Touch Sensor Challenge 1 - Laser