How to categorize your FIRST LEGO League Senior Solutions missions

Robotics competition is a large part of the FLL Competition. The field contains missions which give points and the main purpose is to gather maximum number of points for 2:30min. FIRST LEGO League competitions have different themes every year but the tasks have similar functionality. In this video tutorial we will give a brief of missions in Senior Solutions (the theme for 2012).

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  • 16 Jun 2013
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A large part of the FIRST LEGO League is the robotics competition. Each year the field contains a number of missions, which give different points. The robot has 150 seconds to gather the maximum number of points. What we have seen in our experience is that although competitions have different themes most of the tasks share common functionality. We would try to summarize and categorize the missions in the 2012’s competition Senior Solutions.

The first mission that we will take a look at is the Video Call mission. We put this mission in two of our categories - Active lever and Passive Lever. We could use a third motor attachment in order to lift the flag or use stationary arm to accomplish the mission.

Next is the Woodworking mission. We have to mark it as Collect and Deliver. In order to accomplish the mission we have to bring the chair to the base, repair it by hand and deliver it under the table.

We have put the Medicines mission in two of our categories - Collect and Loops. The medicines is one of the two missions on the field with loops. Solving these missions requires to precisely put an axle, a beam or another lego part inside the loop. Another possibility is to use some kind of fork to lift the loop. After the robot has collected the medicine it has to bring it to base.

Let’s take a look at the bowling mission. This mission could be solved in many ways, that’s why we categorize it as: Container, Deliver, Active lever and Detachable attachment. First you could use a container for the ball and drop it over the pins, you could use a rail to slide the ball, Active lever to hit the ball, use a rubber band to shoot the ball and all of this could be done by detachable attachments.

Flexibility is very interesting mission for the Senior Solutions field. We qualify as Collect, Container, Push/Pull, Loops and High Reach. Lets first stop at the High Reach category. The higher loop is positioned at more than 16 inches or 406 mm. Since 16 inches is the maximum height of the robot when the round starts it means that the robot should somehow extend itself to reach the higher loop. Most High Reach missions require an attachment put at the upper part of the robot, but there are also other ways to solve the mission. For example you can Push or Pull the stand to the extend where the higher loop falls into a Container. This means we put the mission in both Container and Push/Pull category. Both loops should be returned back to base before the end of the round and this adds the final category to this mission which is Collect.

The quilting is marked as Deliver, Push/Pull and Detachable attachment. We have to deliver the plates to the corresponding places on the field, by pushing or by some attachment that could be left on the field afterwards.

The Gardening mission is about Deliver and Push/Pull. The execution of the Gardening mission is the same as the Quilting one.

What is interesting about the Stove is that you should rotate the black lever to more than 90 degrees. In order to do that you have to use an attachment connected to a motor. That falls in the Active Lever category.

Lets move to the next mission which is the strength exercise. You must solve this mission by lifting the weight from the lever. You could use a motor attachment, which is in the active lever category. Some of the teams come up with a solution where you could push the robot to the mission element and using a tilted platform to lift the lever, which is in the Passive Lever and Push/Pull categories.

The Cardiovascular exercise is categorized in Active Lever, Passive Lever and Iteration. The “clock” could be clicked either by attachment connected to a third motor or by steady attachment. The most important part about this mission is that it is iteration based - it could be made just one click at a time.

The mission Similarity recognition and cooperation is in three categories : Active lever, Passive Lever and Collaboration. For this mission you have to collaborate with the other team in order to make agreement on who will push the stick either by active or by passive lever.

The mission Ball Game “Future effects of our current decisions” is in three categories: Active Lever, Passive Lever and Collaboration. For this mission you have to collaborate with the other team, but this time you have to compete with them. To push the ball from the rack you can use either attachment connected to the third motor or a steady one.

The Service animal mission is in 4 categories : Collect, Push/Pull, Active Lever and Passive Lever. The first part of the mission is to push the gray disk either by the robot or use an active or passive arm. Then we have to collect the dog and bring it to base.

There is one common mission each year. The transition mission is about the position of the robot at the end of the round. That’s why we have categorized it in Position at time end. After you categorize the missions you could look for missions in the same category from past years for ideas for solving your current task. In the next tutorials we will go through the categories with examples and possible solutions of the missions.

Courses and lessons with this Tutorial

This Tutorial is used in the following courses and lessons

Image for FIRST LEGO League Competition. Attachments
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Image for FIRST LEGO League 2012 Senior Solutions. Example soluations
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Image for FIRST LEGO League (FLL) 2012 Senior Solutions. Review of solutions with explanations
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Image for Categorization and preparation
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