After a long night with Relay For Life, a few of us brought our robot and gear to Queen’s University for the Science Rendezvous.
Robot transportation is sometimes difficult, but today it was pretty simple. We are very glad that Queen’s is close by, and that the sun was shining! 
We were excited to be a part of the Science Rendezvous, an event that brings together many different community groups to show demonstrations of different kinds of science.
We got our display set up…ready for the event to begin at 10AM.
At the event, there were many different booths to explore. We had fun learning about different aspects of science…
There were many different people presenting their work. There were professors, and grad students, high school students, and even elementary student science fair winners. These two girls made robots out of toothbrushes!
photo posted with permission
Here’s the robot in action.
The Human Mobility Research Center showed how computer assisted surgery works…programming and cameras seem to be everywhere!
Our display was a big hit with all ages. From young drivers….
…to parents, everyone was interested in our program and how we were able to create this robot in 6 weeks.
We are glad of the opportunity to demonstrate our robot at this event. Many thanks to the organizers of the Science Rendezvous. We hope to participate for years to come.
We have made it a K-Botics tradition to participate as a team in the KCVI Relay For Life event held each spring. This year the KCVI event raised over $17000 for the Canadian Cancer Society! 
Our team, made up of students, teachers and mentors, had a campsite in one of the basement hallways, and we needed to mark our territory by making a banner.
To pay tribute to our most recent all-night adventure we called our team K-Botics: LAMBeth 2.0 (For those of you regular blog readers, you’ll remember that it was in 
All participants were given T-Shirts….but after a few moments it was evident that there was a sleeve monster on the loose! 
After the opening ceremonies, where we heard from cancer survivors and family and friends, we did a lap of the luminary track with our teams. The luminaries are all dedicated to family and friends who are fighting the battle with cancer, or in honour of those who have passed away. 
Some people lingered to walk around the luminary track, which was open as a quiet space all night long, while others participated in some more lively events.
There was a dance competition! We did a pretty good job showing everyone our dance moves.
There was a pizza party for dinner…
…followed by a coffee house, where musicians showed off their talents….
…and there was a newspaper fashion show at 2:30AM! 
It has become a tradition for our team to put on a demonstration as well. This year it took a bit of preparation though. We needed to clean all the carpet which had been in the Transformix Warehouse since build season ended. We needed to vacuum the top AND bottom side of each roll. Thanks to the custodial staff for providing us an excellent vacuum!
We also had to ensure that the electrical system and programming were working on our Logomotion robot. Our Rebound Rumble robot is currently in a crate in Toledo Ohio, headed to Kingston sometime this week.
With the music pumping, our robot showed off for the crowds. It was great to see so many people line up to get their hands on the controls. We’re always looking for new members to join our team next year! Who knows, maybe some of these people will join our ranks.
As the night wore on, some of us took time out for a nap.
…or a quiet moment to read a book.
When the morning came, we were feeling a bit exhausted, but happy. We are glad to do our part to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society.
In fact, our team raised the 4th highest amount! For this, we got prizes.
Thanks to Sam for being the team captain this year.
When the cue was aimed, the cameras picked up the angle, and projected where the cue ball would travel, and where the other ball would go after impact.
It was fun to try our hand at pool. We realized that some of us were pretty good! The tracer lines helped some of us a lot.
Thanks to the Queen’s students for inviting us back again. Although watching calibration was interesting, playing the A.R. Pool was much more fun. Good luck as you take this demo on the road–we’re sure it will be a big hit!
This is a project being worked on by one of our mentors who helped with programming and vision code this past season. He wanted to show us that some of the same techniques that our team used are being used by researchers in computer vision in other areas too.
We had a brief tour of the ILC, and learned about what goes on in the building. Many of us have been there before for Science Quest, or for our FLL practice tournament a few years ago. There is usually NOT a big tent set up in the computer area though. This is a special demo set up for A.R. Pool.
It needs to be under a tent to control the lighting on the pool table. There are cameras and a projector involved in the game, so lighting is very important. The cameras are supposed to detect where the balls are, and where the cue is, and the projector will then trace lines showing where the balls will travel after they are hit at a specific angle.
Unfortunately, when we arrived for our tour and demo, there were a few technical issues. The camera settings were off….
…so those got changed….
…and then the lengthy calibration process had to happen.
We know all about calibration. It is such an important step in making any system function well. We had days of calibration in the warehouse before our robot was shooting well.
We participated along with the sports teams and other school clubs….but we stood out with the BIGGEST group of people on stage….
…and the most purple! We showed off last year’s robot, since our 2012 robot is already in St. Louis.
Our school was excited to see the robot in action on the stage. Nobody got stage fright this year…our robots have suffered from that in the past.
We competed in Toronto and then in Atlanta at the championships after winning the rookie all-star award.
Parents and students are excited to see our robot, and some are brave enough to try their hand at the controls.
Many thanks to our school for allowing us to demonstrate our robot at parent teacher nights each year!
It is a big relief to have a working computer lab again. We hope the rest of our equipment can be retrieved soon.
In other exciting news, Canadian teams received Bimba orders today! This is really late for build season this year. Hopefully we’ll be able to incorporate them into next year’s robot.
Today we made a new friend for our team! It’s amazing what an impact FIRST robotics has on people. Our new friend was on a FIRST team, and is excited to get involved here in Kingston. She loves our Kare-bots initiative and had to buy one! We’re raising money currently for a Kenyan school via CanAssist.
Today’s plan was focused on fundraising. We know that after St. Patrick’s day and the Iron Ring ceremony there are lots of bottles around Queen’s University campus. We had put up flyers, and despite the collection another group did the day before, were impressed with the quantity that was left for us to gather.
We are getting very good at sorting the glass and crushing the cans.
Some of us have now got drivers licenses, and can help with the collection on the streets, and the drop off to the beer store.
Did you know that a full pickup truck brings in about $100 in bottle money?
We found all sorts of bottles in the mix. This is the biggest bottle, being held by our smallest K-Bots!
Some cans even came with straws!
We’d like to thank Allan for doing such a great job for us.
This afternoon we were excited to see our new friends, the leaders from the Pathfinder group that we visited yesterday! They came to see our robot and have a look around. We hope to arrange a visit for their pathfinder group in the spring.
We had more visitors this evening when our school hosted Grade 8 information night. Many grade 8 students toured our room and saw our 2009 robot on display in the library. We’re always game to show off our robot to an enthusiastic crowd!
