The Prep as we know it...

The Phoenix Preparatory Academy as we know it has closed its doors. The facility will reopen as University of Public Schools - Phoenix. The school is part of the University Public Schools Initiative. Read more here.

Tournament Today and Heat Wave Team Members

FIRST Lego League Regional Qualifying Tournament today at Carl Hayden High School. Our results will be posted later. See the Phoenix Preparatory Academy robotic team members who participated at the qualifying tournament.

The Phoenix Preparatory Academy’s Robotic Team

The Phoenix Preparatory Academy’s Robotic Team, lead by Prep math teacher Mr. Mark Anderson, has prepared the student team for this year’s First Lego League (FLL) challenge. The two-part Challenge requires research to complete The Project and science and engineering to master the missions of The Robotic Game. Both The Project and The Robotic Game have a common theme this year being Climate Connections.

The Project requires that team members to first research how climate affects their community and identify a problem caused by climate. Next, they are to create an innovative solution based on the information they gathered. And finally, they are to share the research and a solution to build awareness of the problem.

The other half of the two-part Challenge is The Robotic Game. The timed Robotic Game consistent of various mini-tasks, or missions, played out on The Arena. The robots are first built and programmed by team members to carryout the various missions. After much preparation and practice the team will be scored on the success of their timed missions during the competition this Saturday at Carl Hayden High School. Best of luck Heat Wave!

Completed Missions

The last two weeks in robotics have been very busy. Two programs have been completed and were created by team members. One of the missions, bury carbon-dioxide (carbon sequestration) balls, have been completed by Heat Wave team member, Omar. The second mission, the extract an ice core sample, was completed by myself. The missions ride a bicycle and the another carbon dioxide balls program will be complete the next week.

We are sorry to say that the research project is confidential. We are also sorry to report that team member Bron is unable to continue robotics.

That's all for today's blog. Come back for another blog update. Reported by Heat Wave Team member John.

The Robot Clone

Last week team HEAT WAVE discovered a great problem. There was only one robot to work with and it made things difficult for other team members to program other missions. Luckily, HEAT WAVE team member Marcos took some parts to his house and made an exact duplicate of our robot. Thanks to him we got a lot of work done and almost completed the program for doing the mission, Extract an Ice Core Sample.

Reported by John

The Robot

The good news is that the design of the robot has been chosen. We picked it because it's sturdy, fast, and easier to control. Check in next week for another blog update. Unfortunatly, todays robotic meeting was canceled do to the teacher Mr. Anderson having to go to a teacher meeting.

Reported by John, Heat Wave team member

The Arena

Today in robotics we began building the arena that the robot does various tasks on. Unfortunatly we are still not sure what kind of robot we are to design. Despite working on the arena it is still incomplete. The arena should be complete by our next meeting on Thursday, September 18th, 2008. As for our presentation, part of our robotic challenge, we will most likely be studying the drought of Arizona. This has been the first Robotic Coyote blog entry by robotic team member. Check for the next blog entry September 18th.

The robotics team will be known as HEAT WAVE.

Reported by John - HEAT WAVE team member