Head in the Stars, Robotics on the Ground

A Feature by Ayesha Ashraf and Varnika Dhandapani

Kyan Hashimoto, a seventh grader here at Alsion, has spent the last few months working with some of his peers to participate in the First Lego League Robot Game Mission. He worked with his brother, neighbors, and some friends to form his team and build a robot in only six weeks. Last year, Kyan regretted his team’s lack of organization, but this year they began planning and building in the off season, utilizing the Internet to learn how to build better attachments for their robot once the theme for the season was leaked. Kyan has already began planning for next year and his team plans to reuse the same robot but with better attachments.

While interviewing Kyan, he described the work he put in over the last two months to build and program a competition-ready robot. His team used LEGO Mindstorms NXT rather than the other option of EV3 for their robot. They built attachments to create a robot capable of doing missions and gain as many points as possible. Kyan’s team was one of the thousands globally that chose a few of the missions offered my the First Lego League, or FLL, and built a robot with the “Mindstorms technology.” Their team set out to create a machine that could consistently perform required tasks. A large part of this competition is something called core values that evaluate teamwork by encouraging participants to utilize their strengths. As it is almost impossible to compete in all the missions or competitions offered, Kyan had to prioritize those they found most interesting. Requirements set by the FLL needed to be achieved by Kyan’s robot through the use of attachments and programming.

FLL is not only about programming and solving issues at hand, but supporting one another and working together as a team. Along with programming challenges, teams must design a project. This year, the theme was “Into Orbit” and projects needed to involve the space theme. Kyan and his team proposed edible food wrapping for astronauts. According to Kyan, one third of the food astronauts consume is tossed away. Edible food wrappers prevent crumbs in space to protect instruments from becoming clogged with food particles. This way, astronauts are also able to eat spicy food and more vitamins can be added. Then, the edible packaging can be mass produced. Kyan and his team did well with their project, scoring high in core values as a result. The judges were scrutinizing each team from the moment they entered, so Kyan had to make sure he and his teammates were aware of their surroundings and behavior, especially regarding other teams.

Kyan’s team improved this season in comparison to the last. Their robot design failed them, as their Gyro Sensors malfunctioned. These sensors are not always reliable with the NXT program and the robot strayed off course on every mission, unable to keep a vertical path. Though discouraged, they knew there was always next season to improve on their design and place higher. Regardless of these complications, their project went well, as their core values came through. As for core values, Kyan was able to ban video games this year so that his team could interact with other teams to gain a higher score. Kyan’s team placed 4th out of 17.

Kyan and his team are prepared for their next challenge from FLL. In his interview, Kyan outlined his plan to divide and conquer. Instead of having everyone work on all aspects of the competition, Kyan wants the team to split up responsibilities based on their strong suits. Kyan’s strength is building the right attachments for the robots. Their team will reuse their same robot, but with updated attachments Kyan plans to design. However, the team will construct and plan two different robots so that they can be more efficient and experiment more. Kyan also explained that there was another competition called FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) that works on a much larger scale.

Kyan feels that communication, teamwork, and creativity were all life skills he was developing by working on FLL challenges. FLL takes hard work and commitment. Kyan spent five to ten hours a week trying to get his attachment to work. However, giving up time was the only downside he says there is. An age limit is the only thing that could stop Kyan from pursuing his goals in robotics at FLL, and for anyone interested, Kyan highly recommends it. If you enjoy coding, programming and robotics, participating in the First Lego League might be a great way for you to explore and learn in your scope of interest.