RoboGames of 2018

Hello everyone! If you saw my other RoboGames posts, then welcome to another one. Last year I competed in a challenge called Open Lego and built a replica of the original Star Tours attraction. (see RoboGames of 2017). For this year, I decided to go a level higher and compete in Best of Show. It's just like Open Lego except with advanced robots.

The kind of robot I built was an interactive game where you use a joystick to move led lights around on a board. Whenever you pushed down on the joystick you had the power to draw whatever you wanted. I also added a timer and a list of different ways to play in case someone wanted a challenge. I used my portable phone chargers to power up the robot. However, when I put one of the chargers in, I never had to recharge it. And we were there for like 10 hours! I expected to use another phone charger after a couple of hours.

Something I really liked was last time I got a bunch of weird comments about my robot (again see RoboGames of 2017). This time I got a grand total of zero weird comments! All that happened was I would say ''Hello. This is the Matrix Drawing Board.'' I then showed them how to work the game, and then asked if they would like to give it a try. If they said yes, I let them draw whatever they wanted. When they walked away, I'd push the restart button and do it all over again. If no one was coming my way, I'd start drawing something and someone would come over to see what I was doing.

At one point, I did get chance to check out all the other robots people had made for different challenges. There was one robot that I saw on Instagram the other day that plays Chess with you. I also got to see a goat robot made out of stuff like wood, bananas, spoons, lights and a pair of fake teeth. I had a nice conversation with the creator and it turned out he was one of the three judges for Best of Show. I also saw a 30 foot tall tower that lit up in different ways, and a NXT Lego robot that played the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' theme on a piano. On my second break, I decided to watch some Battle Bots. And I'm so glad I did! Because there were two wedge bots going up against a robot that had a sharp spinning drum. About two minutes in, it looked like one of the wedge bots went up into the air, crashed down, and broke into three big parts.

The last thing I'd like to say is the end results for Best of Show. For some odd reason, the judges split up. So for the first round, I talked to two judges which went well. When the third judge came, I talked too fast and tripped up on my own words, and I was all over the place when explaining that my robot can be for fun, or for brain games. Somehow I turned that simple line into a speech that sounded like I was coming up with stuff the robot could be used for right on the spot. After hours and hours of waiting, we saw the judges in a different spot. And yet somehow they still had paper work. The judges had the score sheet out, so we got to find out what place I came in. Out of 27 people, I got 5th place! That alone is a victory. Beating a robotic-self driving wheel chair is the other half of the victory for me.

My new game, "Blazer: Phantom's Revenge"

Hello everyone! As you can tell by the title, this post will be about a new computer game I made using Scratch Programming for a challenge I was in. Long story short, I didn't win but I got a donut! Anyway, this post isn't all about the challenge I was in. This is just about my game. And the coolest thing (to me at least) is if you scroll down to the end of this screen, or anywhere else you might be on my blog, you can play it. I'll go ahead and tell you how to get to it, and how to use it.

As I said, scroll down to the end of the screen, and you should see a big box that shows the "Start Screen" which says "Blazer: Phantom's Revenge." On the right side in this big box is a symbol that looks like a flag. Click the flag, and the game will start up. The game will tell you to push space (on your keyboard) to begin the adventure. If you want to stop the game there is a symbol right next to the flag that looks like a stop sign. Pushing it will stop the game. There are 3 levels and if you run out of lives, depending where you are in the game, the game will tell you to push 'r', 'a', or 'x' to restart. One last thing I would like to say is that all levels are possible to beat. Another way to play is you can go to this website and play my game from there.  https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/213520902/

Now that you know how to get to the game (hopefully I didn't make it sound complex) let's move on to talking about stuff like the inner workings, and some neat little facts about the game.

I'd like to start with the inner workings because throughout the game you come upon Demi Ghosts, Shape Shifters, Ghost Whisps, Tiki Ghost, and Phantom himself. Out of all of these characters, the one with the most codes, is the character you play, Blazer. I know it's hard to see on this screen shot, but there are two codes to move Blazer, three codes to activate the different "Game Overs," 5 codes to make him disappear when he needs to, and the rest are just for the cut scenes.

However, when it comes to the longest code, the award goes to Phantom because he has the most moves, and is doing them in different order. The award for the hardest character to draw goes to both Blazer and Phantom because I had to draw them in One Note just so I can get them to look right, and then find a way to transfer them over to the Scratch software.   

                               

Below is a screen shot of level 1. Now if you were to look at all of the backgrounds Scratch has to offer, you won't find this. Yes, you will find the buildings and road. However, I had to darken the sky so it was truly a city at night. Now this may not look like an exciting level, but the Demi Ghost does shoot fire, and unless you go all trigger happy, you will see him say, "Come, Death Shield." They also have the power to turn invisible, and re-appear somewhere else. Don't worry. You have the Conspiracy Guitar which is more powerful than most of your enemies.

The only enemy that is hard to beat besides Phantom is Tiki Ghost. It'll take some time to take him out. But as you continue the fight with Tiki Ghost, he will try to mess with your mind. Especially in trying to get Blazer's mind to think he is the villain. In truth, (and he knows it) he's not.

Well, I think I'll end this here. There is so much more to say like the Ghost Whisps power is to shoot lasers for instance. All I'm going to say now, is I hope you get a chance to try out my game. If not, then at least you were interested about this game a little. Why else would you be reading this? 

Adventure thru skiing

Hello again! Me and my family went up to Brian Head in Utah for a ski vacation, and it was great! There are so many stories to tell about our trip, but I'm just going to tell some of the ski stories. For one, it'll make this post a whole lot shorter.

The first couple days, we had nice weather conditions, and the snow wasn't all too bad. However, there wasn't very much deep snow, so you would sometimes have to avoid some small rocks that were still sticking out. One time we got off of a chair lift and started down to where you have access to a good amount of runs, when suddenly I hear this short scraping sound. I knew right away that I hit a rock. Aside from rocks, for the first few days, I would crash when I got off of the chair lift. Not a chair lift like Giant Steps Express, but like the ones for three people only. I would get up, turn real tight and maybe cross my skis or end up on someone's else's skis, and fall.

Moving ahead, we got extra snow on the mountain. We all knew that we had to get up to Brian Head first. The drive was only a few minutes, but me and my siblings wanted to be the first skiers, because there was fresh powder. We ended up first in line, on the far left. I say this because the people on the far left always get scanned first. So we were the first ones to rule the mountain! We did the Giant Steps face run, and kept to the powder. My favorite part was at one point, there would be these annoying bumps, and I would have to try to go around each one. But with the extra snow, they were all covered up! The only problem, was our skis weren't built to go through powder. So I would see my skis disappear, reappear, disappear, reappear. I'm just going to say I did ok. There were some comical crashes.

One time, I was going though the terrain snow park, and decided to go off of a jump and head straight for a snow wall you can go on right after I landed. The plan didn't work. I went off the jump, and I don't know how, but I somehow ended up facing the wrong way, seeing where I've been. I noticed that I was just sitting down on my skis, so I just got up, turned around, and kept going.

And the last ski story I'd like to share, is actually several in one story. There have been times where my brother would race my dad or sister, and I would count down, and try to race. I say try, because no matter what you do, my brother found a way to sit down on his skis and go really fast. One time, I was racing with my siblings, and as soon as I said go and my brother took off, it was just over. The only thing I could do, was try not to lose sight of him.

All in all, this was a great trip! So glad I got to go, and hope there is another adventure waiting for us. Hope you enjoyed reading this!

What RoboGames Is

Hello everyone! If you checked out some of my other posts, you'll see that I talk about RoboGames a lot. However, I always talked about what competition I was in. But never about RoboGames itself. So in this post, I'll be telling you what RoboGames is!

RoboGames is a world wide competition where you compete in different challenges using your robot. There are people from Mexico, China, Turkey, all over the world really.  There are actually two buildings for RoboGames. The main building has all the challenges for something simple like following a black twisting line or something complex like moving though a maze in search of a fire to blow out. You usually find a mix of Lego NXT robots and advanced robots in this building. The other building is where you will only find the advanced robots.

In the main building there are challenges like ''Fire Bot'' (the complex challenge), ''Line Follow'' (the simple challenge), ''Tube Push'', etc. You can find some advanced robots in ''Fire bot'' and ''Sumo." (Sumo: Where robots try to push each other off of an edge) ''Best of Show'' has more advanced robots than Lego robots. ''Best of Show'' is where you can build anything you want. ''Open Lego'' is the same thing, but using Lego parts only. Because of these two challenges, there are rows of tables that you can walk by and see all the different inventions people have made.

In order to get into the other building, you need some kind of a pass. Which is annoying because this building has all of the amazing advanced robots. Just like the main building, there are rows of tables that you can walk by to see a bunch of robots. These robots go into an enclosed arena to fight each other with sharp blades, fire, hammers, or wedges. So whenever a battle comes on, the place gets really loud just because of these Battle Bots. There is another form of ''Battle Bots'' called ''Mech Warfare." That challenge doesn't make very much noise, and the robots are a lot smaller, but two robots fight each other using Airsoft guns. There is one section where people make robots of different kinds. Kind of like "Best of Show'' except maybe a little bit different. I'm not sure how different, I just walk by and think ''Wow.... These robots look so cool!''

So in short, RoboGames is a world wide robotics competition where there are many different challenges with many different things going on and lots of different designs to check out, while in the other ''need a pass to get in'' building, there are robots trying to dissemble each other.

Crossed wires: Robot weirdness

Hello whoever reads these! If you checked out Creations and saw my video about my Arduino robot and how it's built, you probably noticed I said, "video of it moving will come once the building is done, and the program is in." Well, the building is almost done, in a weird way. And the programming is almost done, in a weird way. Let me explain why.

Now the wiring was very tricky for me. But after finding out how my robot teacher did the wiring for his robot, I based my robot off of his. After that, I went into programming, where one wheel moved, then the other. I was to get both wheels moving at the same time. But after messing around with the program, my robot quit working. And to make things even more weird, there was nothing wrong with my program. So, my robot teacher took two wires out, and the robot started working! This confused the both of us of how this was possible. So the next day, my robot teacher took a closer look at my robot, re-did the wiring, but this time, the robot didn't work. I didn't up load any new programs into the robot, so the program is going to be looked at again next meeting. Hopefully, the robot will work so I can get a video of it, and then move onto my next project for RoboGames, Best of Show competition. But until then, I have to figure out why my robot is acting so weird......

The winner for the Disneyland ride poll is...........

In the last poll, I asked which Disneyland ride is better out of the three that were given. (Which were Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, and Haunted Mansion)
Haunted Mansion didn't get a vote, but the other two did. Which instead of dragging this on forever, I'm just going to say who won. The winner is..................... No one. It came down to a tie. Now I didn't vote, but if I could now, then I would pick....... Um....... Well, it's hard for me. So I'll just randomly pick Thunder Mountain.

Just so you know, I have made another poll, which if you like, you can vote down below. This time, the poll is about projects I would like to work on someday. I have put in a short description of what each of the projects are. If you would like to know a little bit more, you can check out my last post, ''Projects I would like to work on someday.''

Projects I would like to work on (someday)

Greetings, whoever is reading this! Well, it's 2018. Which means that some people are making new goals, and not just field goals.

The goals I'm talking about, is where you decide to do something, like try to write the numbers 2018 in a really cool way. What I do, is come up with an idea, while working on a project, like a comic book, and say, ''You know what would be cool? Is if one day, I (Insert idea).'' Which suddenly, I come upon a problem. I give myself too much stuff I like to work on. So to fix this, I finish one project, so I can work on the other project idea, and then come up with another project idea again.... So here are some projects I would like to work on someday! 

Number 1: I like coming up with stories. One story idea I would like to write, is called ''Ultimate Crossover.'' This is how it goes: ''A character, (not knowing that he is part of a movie) accidently travels to another dimension. (which is a movie or T.V. show) and accidently creates some problems. When he gets back to his home, he soon sees that his, and other dimensions have changed by a lot. Each dimension is halfway into the same timeline. What changed, was that evil now wins over good. So now all of the good characters have to put things back to the way they were. Their weapon, is thinking outside the box.'' The original plan was to use Disney characters. But then there's the whole copyright thing, so I'm making my own characters.

Number 2: Ok, that one was long.... So I'll try to keep this one short. I would like to make a stop action T.V. show called, ''Super Ultra Mega Random Improv Show.'' It's a show where there are different short acts. One can be called, ''Life in the Jungle.'' Or an act could also be called, ''Building Tips from Wacky.'' Sometimes, there will be stories. So one episode can just be about telling a story that I came up with. Like from a comic book.

Number 3: I have a Lego robot, and my robot club is no longer using Lego robots. So I can do anything I want with my robot! So far, I've built two things, but never programmed my robot. But I have one idea that may get me back into programming. I'll build something out of Legos, (Secret Base. Temple. Just whatever comes to mind.) and make it better by making some things move, using the Lego robot motors. (Doors. Traps. Etc.)

Number 4: Someday, after my ''Navigational Stars'' game program, I would like to make another game program called, ''Chaos Kitchen.'' A comical game where crazy stuff happens, and you have to try to control it. Before everything goes into Total Chaos.

Number 5: One more idea I would like to share, is a part two of ''Navigational Stars'' game. The first one is how Cy-Trons (Half human, half robot) exist. I don't know the story for the second one if I do make another one, but it might be that turning point where the Cy-Trons start thinking that they are under mind control, because they are told what to do via programming.  The problem with this idea, what do I work on first!? Navigational Stars 2, or Chaos Kitchen? Excuse me, while I think about this.

Happy new year! (Even though it's been 15 days into the new year........)

The last C# programming challenge I completed

Greetings everyone! Once again, just by looking at the title, you know what I will be talking about. Now I know that some of you out there aren't programmers, so I will try not to go all computer nerd, and be like, "and this line of code does this, while this makes this do that-" Also, just to be clear, when I say last challenge, I just mean the last thing the book wanted me to do. I'm still programming my own games.

So as you can see in the video, I made a game of Chess. And I have to say, the coding was complicated. Now every time the book gave me a challenge, I needed to open an activity document on my File Explorer. Usually, I'm only given one document. But for this challenge, I was given five documents. The first one wasn't so bad, until the end. I couldn't get the coding right, so I asked my Dad. Guess what we found out. The code that I was trying to put in, wasn't supposed to be put in just yet! As a matter of fact, later in time, I learned that the same code I was trying to put in, was in the wrong place. The second document was the easiest one. All I had to do, was cut and paste a file on my File Explorer. But after that is where things got hard.

One of the hardest parts, was where I had to fill in the Handle click method. The reason it was hard was because I had to tell the computer what to do in case of check, still in check, what to do if a piece is captured, and select/deselect a chess piece. The deadline to complete this challenge was Thanksgiving. I only had a few weeks to meet the deadline. So I would try to get as much coding in as possible every time I worked on it. Another hard part was the pawn. All I had to do at one point was tell it how it can move at the start, after the first move, and have it move diagonal when it captures an enemy. There are about 43 lines of code for just the pawns. Rooks and bishops have only 4, kings and queens have 9, and the knights have 17. (Yes, I counted for this post....)

Well, in the end of it all, I didn't want my Chess game to be like the others. So I decide that if you move your king, but it's still in check, the message box will say, "Nice move. However, your king is still in DANGER!" The other thing I did, was put in a beep whenever your king is still in danger, or is in check. All in all, this was a good programming course. Which I also met the deadline! But the next time I make a visual game, I'm going to copy and paste my Chess board program. :-)

RoboGames of 2017

Hello again everyone! As you can tell by the title, I'll be talking about RoboGames again. But this time, I'll be talking about one of the challenges I did.

So after last year, I knew it was time to do a challenge that I have yet to do. I decided to do Open Lego, where you can build anything you want, and the judges will pick the best robot. At first I thought of re-creating my Lego Wall.E that I built few years ago that can move on it's own. But then the thought of re-creating the original Star Tours ride at Disneyland came to mind, and I thought, "Ya. That's one idea. But lets keep thinking." But the more I thought about making Star Tours, the more I liked it. I started running though how I was going to build it, then decided to go with that plan! But it didn't turn out easy. I ended up building lots of prototypes that didn't hold up the ride. Until I got it figured out one day. I improved the design, built a smaller Lego Star Speeder that would sit on top, then got on with programming! (Timing the part of the ride for where you are in a comet took forever.......) The rules were simple. You build a robot out of nothing but Legos, you can't have anything that doesn't have the Lego logo on it be connected to the robot, and after you show case your robot, the judges will take a look at your robot, and figure out which place it's in. What I had for my display, was the robot, a poster board, and my bigger Star Speeder, which is the first prototype that I made. Behind my robot, was a computer showing the ride moving in time with my robot. This is allowed, because the computer was not hooked up in anyway to my robot. Under the table was a charger with batteries in it. This was because when the power got low on my robot, I could just switch the batteries, and I didn't have to tell people, "Sorry. Low on battery. You'll have to wait."

I actually really liked this challenge. Because I got to do nothing but play with my robot! Some times, there would be a mass of people, and other times, it was quiet. Open Lego was right by another challenge just like this one, except with advanced robots. So at one point, I noticed that a large group of people were looking at the advanced robots. I figured that if I had my robot going when they moved along, I would be the one of the first stops due to where my robot was set up. Which it turned out that I was right! There were also quite a bit of people that lit up when they saw it. One teen was so interested in my robot, he would came back to see it whenever he got the chance. There was one man who wanted to know more about Lego robots. So I showed him the program, what it has, where he can get a Lego robot, and even told him what club I'm in. However, just like in the book of "Mouse Tales," there were some weird comments. I guess now that I look back, they were pretty funny. I remember one question, where after someone watched my robot for a little bit, asked if the bigger version of the Star Speeder was the new ride. Even though the bigger version looks the same, and there is a poster of the new ride, which does look completely different, and even has a card that says, "in the new ride." Actually, I think that was the most asked question. Some people said, "So this one here must be the new ride!" There was one guy who saw it, walked away, came back with little kids, and said, "Look! It's a walking robot! No.... Wait.... What is this?" I think the most "head-scratching" comment was when one guy said, "That's Star Tours! Ya. That's in Disney Universal." How he combined the two, I don't know. So I just said after his short speech about the ride, "It's not in Universal. But it is in all of the Disney parks."

When the time came for the robots to be judged, I started thinking that I would need to explain why I had tires on the side of my robot. But when they came over, few questions in, and one of them says, "Are those tires there to keep it stable?" I was so happy, because he got it right! I didn't have to explain it! They asked questions like, what was the hardest part? How long did it take you to build it? And how does it work? Now I don't know about anyone else, but the judges were the best. I didn't stay in the building too long after the judges. Reno Robot Club built a battle bot, and I had to be there because I'm part of the team. Long story short about battle bots, we made the other robot smoke during the second round, and made it though the full three minutes, which we did lose. (but we made it to the second round!) Then I went back to Open Lego, to find out that I ended up in third place! All in all, this was a really good day. And guess what? You've just read a really long story! Give yourself a hand!

The adventures of Robo games

The first time I went to Robogames was before I got hooked onto Lego robots. I don't remember how old I was, but what I do remember was meeting R2-D2 from Star Wars! Actually, I think I saw two different versions of him. But it took some time for me to join Robot Club. And by some, I mean years. Ya.... It took a while.

But what I loved about Robogames the most, was the battle bots. They were advanced robots with blades, or flippers, and sometimes flame throwers. The robots would battle each other until there was only one robot moving. However, it is very loud. But...fun to watch. Once I joined Robot Club, I went to Robogames in 2012, 2015, and 2016. I did line follower in 2012. But 2015, I remember best. And don't start thinking I have short term memory loss because I can remember a trip my family and I took in 2008. Anyway..... In 2015, I know I did line follower and tube push.

Line follower was where you raced against other people, which by the way, people come from all over the world to compete in Robogames, and tube push was where you had to try and collect all 7 card board tubes in this small maze, and get them to the end. Both sound easy, right? Nope!!!! For line follower, you have to stop on a piece of tin foil. And tube push, if you don't line your robot up just right, you will have a disaster. Line follower? Slow, but happy to get my robot to do something. Now I say that because in tube push, my robot went out, turned left, went forward, and got stuck on a wall. And never got off to finish the challenge. And was never meant to get stuck. At all. I got two out of seven tubes. I was so mad at my robot. And here is the crazy thing. I worked at it at Robot Club, my friend's house, and Robogames lets you have some time (I don't mean years) to work on your robot to work out the bugs. Not real bugs by the way. So I would have thought I would go though this as if it was nothing. But no. I lined it up wrong...... However..... I did get to meet Grant from Mythbusters. I was so shocked, I had no idea what to say. But it still was pretty cool!

One year later, 2016, I didn't do line follower. All I had to do was just speed up my robot, and I'm done. No joke. So, I just did tube push. And this time, I don't care how many tubes I get. I don't care if my score is low. All I want is to have my robot make it to the end. Last time, the reason it got stuck, was I put an arm at the top that swings down. But it got stuck. The the arm would go up and you will be on your way. No. There was a small wall on the front. That is what did it. Now my robot has a small wall on the front, and an arm. But the arm lifts up the left side wall so that way it can get out of hard spots. Also, I put a red marker on the front bar. That was my targeting system. And thanks to the wall arm, targeting system, and working on my robot at all the same places. It got to the end! At first, I thought I was in 12th place. But then I found out I was in 5th place. Until I was wrong again. I got 83 points. Putting me in........... 3RD PLACE!!!!! Something I never thought of being in!

After that, I got to check out the advanced robots. Long story short, I was in inventors heaven. There were battle bots that you can get up close to, small battle bots, advanced open Lego, and so much more! It was awesome! I don't know what I will do next. Open Lego? Sumo bots? Who knows. But what I do know, is that I will never get tired of going to Robogames. There's always something new. Now I will let you get back to looking at pictures of my incredible creations, or get back to your Nerf war if you started one. Which if you did, I am amazed that you had the time to read this. Good job!!!!! 

About the future inventor

Hello! My name is Ross. I live in the U.S.A. I would like to be a programmer, and as a side job, an inventor! One of the fun things that I enjoy doing is making movies. Stop action movies. With Lego's mostly. My first movie had zero sound. And then in one of my movies, it had music in it. But then there was no more sound in my movies. But now, my new movie, Agent Minion, will have sound all the way to the end! On another note...... I like to play with my marbles. And I can be funny, or not. Depends on what mood I'm in. But I do love comedies. I also love adventures. In my opinion, everyone should go out on adventures. Adventures to me, is a place you never been to, haven't been to in a long time, or rarely go to. And yes, I know that the last two are almost the same thing.... I think it is safe to say that if I ever become a cast member at Disneyland, I think I will be like, "Know that one already! And that one too. And that one.... And that one....." Why? Ask me a question. Any question. Want to know how to get the sword out of the stone? Easy. But if you don't want me to ruin the magic, I won't tell unless if you do ask me. Same with Indiana Jones Adventure, Space mountain, Haunted Mansion, and so on. What I can tell you without ruining the magic, is that Disneyland was built in one year with only 18 rides. I could go on about secrets if I could, about me, and my incredibly smart, improv mind. But now, it's on to something else!