On Friday 27^th June, Sam Wheelhouse and I accompanied the Junior School to the Trent University’s Robot Racer challenge 2008. We started early in the day and it became apparent the competition was going to be difficult.

 

Sam Wheelhouse and I were entering a buggy into the KS3 competition. Our buggy was relatively simple as there wasn’t a microchip controlling it; however this left us with a difficult challenge of beating the buggies with microchips, as they were more advanced. Our buggy was made using the Kre8 kit; we used the kit to build the chassis and then created a ball firer with plastic. The ball firer consisted of two motors spinning which fired the ball. Due to the vibrations caused by the motors, the ball dropped off a shelf into the firer. Many other competitors were impressed by this system.

 

The competition required our buggy to reverse upon hitting a wall, fire a ping pong ball and drop a coin on a target. As we hadn’t used a microchip we had to wrap string round the axles which would trigger our systems.  We unluckily didn’t have a clean run; however we still came 8^th out of 14 teams, which we are pleased with considering the challenge, was given to us just a week before the competition.