Eighth Session: Tue 10/14
Notes from Session Seven
The team clarified their innovation problem: transporting heavy materials out to remote archaeology sites through soft ground like sand or mud. Team members have identified several existing solutions, such as tracks to replace the wheels, large diameter wheels, and laying down track boards. Coach reminded them that they may find existing expertise in both remote construction industry (like mining and oil/gas) and off-roading trucks, also that archaeologists likely do not have the financial resources of heavy industry, so keep affordability in mind.
Photos from Session Seven
The team worked on building attachments and coding solutions to three missions. Unfortunately, one group's laptop battery died prior to them saving their code. Lesson learned! But they did not lose the mechanisms built and refined, nor the experience of what worked, nor their memory of what steps the code performed.
Session Eight
Expect to continue work on mission mechanisms and code and to discuss progress on our innovation challenge.
Coaching Notes
We have six sessions left before our qualifier, prior to which we'll need to have a robot programmed with mission-ready code, a collection of attachments, a plan to use them in specific order, and a presentation of how we came up with our design. We'll also need to have a solution to our innovation challenge which we've researched and checked with experts and improved based on feedback, and a presentation of the same.
I reminded the team that this is our first time doing this, including my first time coaching, so I'm also learning how to coach the innovation project. As I told them, "Let's do our best, but if we fail, let's fail spectacularly."