Legos in Paradise - Smart Move Season

Our Project
   First, we created a list of transportation types. We narrowed our list to about 5 professions, and decided on Emergency Response Vehicles for our problem. We chose Emergency Vehicles because they had the problem with the biggest impact. We then chose a community of Greater Grand Rapids.

Our Problem:
   As we chose Emergency Vehicles as our transportation type, this is our problem: People are not getting out of the way because they don't hear the sirens or see the lights of emergency vehicles. This causes the first response vehicles very long delays to get to a scene. Todays cars are built to be soundproof from outside noises for a quiet ride, but that blocks the noise of sirens. When an emergency vehicle is going faster than 55 miles per hour, it can outrun the noise of sirens. The sirens are then virtually ineffective! People also have their radios up loud and they're talking on their cell phones, which distracts them from seeing first response vehicles.

Our Solution:
   Our team had to think of a solution. We thought of several ideas and decided on one, which had the least issues that were brought up. Our idea is to put a transmitter in the emergency vehicles to transmit a type of radio-wave signal to a receiver in the public cars, to notify the drivers that a first response vehicle is approaching. A GPS Chip in the transmitter can send the vehicle's road and direction information to the receiver, and the receiver can use that information to notify the driver with automated speech what direction and road the vehicle is traveling on! The receiver will also turn on a light in case you are listening to the radio up loud. The transmitter will turn on with the lights and sirens of the emergency vehicle. The receiver will be built in to new cars or can be purchased as an add-on for existing cars. Our team decided to call this idea E.V.A.R. Safe. EVAR stands for Emergency Vehicle Approaching Receiver.

Our Research:
   For our Problem and Solution, we created a survey to see if the public thinks this is a problem. We also created a survey for local Police and Fire Departments all around Kent County! So far, we have 338 Public Drivers who took the survey. We also had 201 Emergency Vehicle drivers take our survey! 92% of the public drivers think they have enough time to get out of the way of Emergency Vehicles, however, 96% of the surveyed Emegency Personnel think that drivers don't respond quickly enough! This difference shows that the public doesn't even realize that this is a problem! We also surveyed the public and Emergency Vehicle drivers about our solution: 98% of Emergency Personnel surveyed like our idea! Also, 90% of drivers surved like our idea. 71% of public drivers surveyed say they would pay for this product as an add-on.
   Click Here to help our research by taking our fast, 5-minute online survey!

Our Robot

Legos in Paradise Robot (Click to Enlarge)

Electronics:
   We use the NXT platform with all NXT Sensors and Motors
2 Light Sensors, really useful to all missions
3 NXT Built-in Motor Rotation Sensors
A Touch Sensor, for sensing walls
An Ultrasonic Sensor, for following the walls

Structure:
   We use 2 Driving Motors (1 per wheel) to move around the mat
   We use a 3rd Motor to raise and lower Attachments
   For Driving, we use Direct Drive
   For Turning, we use One-Wheel, Reverse-Direction, Differential Speed Turning, as well as NXT-G Built-in Steering
   We use "Big White Motorcycle Tires" to drive, 2 wheels per motor for more grip
   We also use 2 "Big White Motorcycle Tire Hubs" on the front

Attachments:
   We use 3 Attachments:
The 1st is a Cage to collect Loops and Barrels
Our 2nd is a Dozer Bucket to grab the Corner Loops
Our 3rd is a special Guide Wall Loop grabber that pierces through Loops

Final Mission Strategy:
   We've had an original Mission Strategy, but it got changed slightly throughout the season for accuracy of completing missions.
   Our Robot would get 400 Points with coming to base 5 times
     Mission 1: Get the Blue Loop and 3 Warning Beacons. Go back to base.
     2: Release the Truck, then get the Gray Loop and the Sensor Wall on the Pillars.
     3: Get the Gray, Red, Green, and Yellow Loops. Go back to base.
     4: Get the Gray and Red Loops on the Guide Wall and the Brown Loop.
     5 (By hand): Grab the Red and Orange Loops in the North-East Corner.
     6: Hit 4 Access Markers. End in Target Area with People onboard the Robot.
     Crash Test Figure stays on the Robot the whole match.