DEATH RACE!

This challenge was a battle to the DEATH! Each team had to make a car made of lego pieces and drive it on foam squares in a large square. The catch was, no part of your robot could touch outside of the foam squares. Also, two out of the four outer edges, had a large drop from table to ground.

1. Our team lost. We lost because our robot design was not so great and we didn't get the hang of steering it. The design wasn't the best because the robot had its motors in the back and didn't have a good base to support the battery pack. During the competition the battery pack weighed down the car and sometimes made it split in half. We poorly designed that part of the car. We used a lot of collaboration to come up with the design. I had an idea to hold the battery pack and Jeremiah had an idea for the wheels so we tried to mix the two together but it didn't work out so well. I tried using the Anti-winning strategy and during the brainstorm process tried to make a slimmer robot. I think this helped a lot with our robot's turning because there was such a small area to turn in, without falling off the table.

2. Danielle and I are extroverts and Jeremiah is an introvert. I think that maybe I got a little controlling and strayed from my job as parts collector and spent too much time thinking about time management. I should have just left that to the team leader (Danielle) so that everyone could successfully do their job the way they wanted to do it. Other than that we worked really well together. We listened to each others ideas and had fun!

3. Our team did best at using only the pieces we really needed. We had a clear vision of what the robot was going to look like and which pieces would make that happen. We were also good at time management because we had enough time to practice controlling the robot and finding out who was the best and steering. This helped our team because each member felt confident that we were controlling the robot as best as we could. Also Danielle and I got to try controlling the robot which would later help us to give Jeremiah advice during the competition.

4. Next time I would spend more time on the design and brainstorming process. Perhaps think more about the concept "less is more" as well. The groups that did the best in this competition had three wheels or just two, which gave them more control in steering. I would like to try brainstorming how to get the job done with as little large pieces as possible (without compromising the strength of the design) and then think about larger designs. I usually start big and forget the strength and control you can get from a compact design.

The competition was fun but didn't live up to its name "DEATH RACE!" because we were all too afraid to bash into other cars thus making them plummet to their DEATH!