We are Team Antimatter!
We are from Pukekohe in the North Island of New Zealand. In November 2013 we won the Champion’s Award at the New Zealand competition of FIRST LEGO League. We competed with 28 other teams from around the country.
What is First Lego League (FLL)?
FLL is an international robotics program aimed at children aged nine to sixteen, designed to excite them about science and technology. Participants work in teams to build and program a robot made of Lego, then compete in national and international competitions. Each FLL season has a theme which the teams research, to come up with a real-life problem they then try to solve.
Who Are We?
Our team is called Antimatter and consists of 2 boys and 1 girl, Ethan, Tim and Tonii. Our ages range from 10-12 years. We have 2 coaches who help guide us through the FLL challenge. We all have preschool siblings and they are our very cute mascots. We have taught them all how to push the orange LEGO NXT robot start button! Ethan has been competing in FIRST LEGO League for 5 years. Tonii and Tim have been competing for four years. Our team has been the same for two years now but we have been in other teams in the past. Our proudest achievement so far was winning the Champion’s Award in New Zealand.
What is FIRST World Festival?
The FIRST Championship is a three-and-a-half-day robotics championship held annually in April. It is held at the 60,000 seat Edward Jones Dome, in St Louis, Missouri USA. The event comprises three simultaneous competitions, FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Championship, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) World Championship, and FIRST LEGO League (FLL) World Festival. It is the culmination of the FLL season and 84 champion’s award teams from over 38 countries are invited to participate. Team Antimatter is proud to be the team representing New Zealand!
Our Project for FLL Nature’s Fury
Every FLL challenge has a project component. This is equally as important as the themed robot game and provides a great learning opportunity for the team since it is carefully chosen based on global events. The topic for FLL Nature’s Fury was coping with natural disasters and was actually chosen by FIRST and LEGO partially as a result of recent earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan. Our project was about Mt Ruapehu in the North Island. We invented an app to keep mountain users safe.
Mt Ruapehu in the Central North Island of New Zealand is an active volcano with large ski areas and tramping tracks. Most eruptions on Mt Ruapehu are rather mild compared with other volcanoes worldwide, however, the number of people using the mountain means there is a real potential for loss from lahars when the mountain is active. A lahar is a mud flow which collects debris as it speeds down the mountain from the crater lake during an eruption.
We developed ALERT (Alarm and Location Eruption Response Tool), a phone app that tells the user when an eruption is about to occur. GNS Science monitor Mt Ruapehu and will send out alerts to the app when an eruption is imminent.
If an eruption is about to occur the app on the user's phone will make an urgent beeping noise. The app will show the fastest and safest route to the nearest safe zone using the GPS in the phone even when visibility is low.
How can you help us?
New Zealand is a small country in the South Pacific. It is a long way to St Louis! We are aiming to raise $3500 NZD. This is to pay for our accommodation in St Louis during the event. We are self funding the remainder of the trip.
Risks and challenges
Risks:
Travel risks include delayed flights. Our flights are due to arrive 3 days before the start of the event so we have done our best to eliminate pre-event travel issues.
Team Sickness - during the event members could get sick. The robot challenge only allows two operators so we could still compete if one team member is sick.
Lost / broken robot and attachments - We are taking our robot in hand luggage and will take all precautions to ensure the robot arrives in one piece.
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Funding period
- (30 days)