September 25th

This is Nic. Today we began our meeting discussing our individual research projects and what we learned from them. We discussed our climate and our planet's climate. We now have a general idea of different climates around the world. We discussed different climate-related problems in our area and what we might or might not choose to research.

Tomorrow we have a field trip to the Blackland Research Center. We spent some of our time today thinking of different things we could ask Dr. Polley, the lead scientist who we'll meet tomorrow. Coach Jaworski read an article about allergies - specifically ragweed - we suffer from in Central Texas. I (Nic) will be investigating if we can use this (climate-connection) for our research project.

Regarding our robotic competition, we finally got the levee program to work with 100% accuracy! We ran the program 5 times and were able to successfully: deliver all the levee parts to the red grid, retrieve the ice buoy and activate the storm system (tires) to test the strength of the levees. This is worth a total of approximately 55 points, but it can be worth another 25 points once we deliver the ice buoy to the research center. We're also thinking about how to attach the little men to deliver them to the red grid area.

Alex confirmed our field trip for tomorrow at Blackland. We also talked about a field trip for next week with a local farmer.

Alex confirming the field trip with Dr. Polley.

Nic, Cheyne and Max prepare the robot to run the levee mission

Robot delivering the levees

Robot retrieving the ice buoy

Robot tripping the storm system

Our little brothers completed the Robotic Invention System training missions. Here is a picture of them with their completed robots:

Justice (Cheyne's little brother)

Oliver (Nic's little brother)

Simon (Nic's little brother)