Lego Stairs Climber

Date:  Sep 19, 2015

It is Saturday again.  Jay attends Robotics class every Saturday with his friend Riyandi.

This class teaches them how to use Lego Mindstorms to solve problem.

Let’s check it out how is their progress of learning robotics.

Wow!  They are treating it like their home.  Lying on the floor to program.  (no sleeping ya)

This week project is to climb the stairs.  And the stairs is these few stairs as shown below.

Sounds simple right?  

Well, this is a two weeks project.  Last week they failed.  Hahahaha  

This week, they seems to come up with a new design.

Last week, they build a robotic car that is powerful enough to climb one stairs and get stucked there.

So, teacher Enzo only flashed them with a video to prove that it can be done.  Perhaps a video of what they can do, and they have to build the robotic cars themselves without instructions.  I LIKE!

Think… Master Builder.

After they build the car, they will need to figure out how to program it.  Also modify and improve it.

See how much fun they have.  And how many times they have failed.  And they keep on learning to improve it.

Jay Jay slowly understand what is the problem he is facing.

OK.  Let’s see some actions.

This week, they added the climber wheels.  The figured that they need that climber wheels to pull the robot car up the stairs.

So, they need to figure out what to do, once they got on to one stair.

Riyandi one has a shorter climber wheels.  And why it got stuck?

So, that is the problem the kids have to fix.

 Jay’s one has a longer climber wheels but more unstable due to length. And notice that just below the EV3 module, there are two pieces of lego sticking out and that is obstructing the movement.  So, he has to redesign that so to make it smooth.

Almost there.  But keep repeating the actions as it failed to move up stairs #2.

By this time, there is only Jay Jay left in the class.  All the rest  have to go off because they have other activity.  So, Jay Jay gets all the attention from teacher Enzo.

But still he could not make it to the top stairs.  But his bot almost did it.

The reason is because the parts that holding the climber wheels are not strong enough.  So, that is why you see that it always bend a little, and that does not create the strength to pull the bot up.

So, Enzo passed him and let him go.  And he is so excited and explain to me what happen, etc etc.

The country wanted all the kids to learn programming and be a smart nation.

So, I guess Jay Jay should be fully prepare for it. 

This coming School holidays, I will teach him how to program an App.  :)

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Our Kids Has Grown Up 孩子们都长大了 Happy Mid Autumn Festival

Date:  Sep 27, 2015

We gave life to them 9 & 6 years ago, and look at them today, blink blink, they have all grown up.  

It has been an exciting journey so far, and it’s going to be another long and exciting journey ahead. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

 

Look at the sky.  Do you see that big round round moon?

It was amazing.  Just two days ago, the country is in distress and have to cancel school and O-level exams for Primary School and Secondary School.

The west side of Singapore has hit a dangerous level of PSI > 350.

Then, on that day itself, blue sky started to appear.  And look at today, the sky is just perfect!

Don’t feel like having haze at all. 

That is why all of us gear up and joining the carry lantern event from Ayer Rajah CC walking to the ???.

We are going to park our car at Lukas and Ashlyn’s condo, and then, we walk from there across the AYE to the Chinese temple where there is a Getai & dinner set up already there,

These kids has known each others back in Lorna Whiston Pre-School as young as 18 months.

The stay close by each other and have done a lot of activities together.

Look how much they have grown.

This is probably the first time these two kids walking across AYE holding hands.  :)

You can really tell how happy these kids are.  See, even dancing pattern came out.

This is the Getai.  Later everyone will come here.

We are at the CC now.  And it seems that we are the last one to arrive.

But when the Lion Dance was leading, we instantly become leading the Lantern crows.  hahahahaha

This is probably the first time they carry lanterns with so many people they have not seen before..

They just pop the popper, and both Kay and Colette pick up some shining paper from the ground...

The Chinese opera… Learn the Chinese cultures...

The Liew boys and the Smith girls.

????

We are waiting for people who went to the toilet.

Thanks to the weather and no haze.  

Boon Ching make a remark: “We don’t get this kid of clear sky where you can see the moon so clearly every year."

Someone: “But today is not Mid-Autumn Festival yet!"

Ya hor, come to think about it… what if tomorrow the sky rains?  what if the haze came back?  

So, today, we see the weather so nice, better do it today instead of tomorrow...

Everyone must be thirsty.  Let’s drink some orange juice.  It says Orange juice on this big drink container.

Fixing the lantern.  And let’s take a walk.

The moon is so round and bright tonight.  (I didn’t bring my Super Zoom camera, this is the best I can shoot).

It will be a waste if we didn’t take a photo with the moon as our background.  

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Some thing not right…. Yeah… their heights… Let’s rearrange them.  Better...

Kay Kay is like singing here.

The kid’s childhood does not come by chance.

It depends on the parents who “pakat” so to make things happen.

Both Jay & Kay has make friends with the Faber Crest families.  They playdate together.  They study together.  They went on holidays together.  And again and again, we the parents hope to give them the best friendships, childhood so that they can cherish and remember forever.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!  ??????

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