Farm to Fork Challenges - April 2014

On April 4th, Davie County Schools held its 4th annual robotics competition at Davie County High School. This year’s theme was entitled “Farm to Fork”. This farm-themed competition challenged teams to engineer and design their robots to pick apples from trees, pick up and deliver crates to a loading dock, move eggs from the hen house to the table, sow fields, move horses and cows to a corral, and other farm-related challenges. The three Davie County middle schools and six elementary schools competed in this year’s finale.

Teams were presented with 6 challenges before Christmas and another 4 were added in February to prepare for this competition which required teams to build and program using Lego NXT Mindstorm robots. Each team competed to earn as many points as possible and complete as many challenges they could. Challenges were judged by Chad Fuller (Davie County School Board Chair), Gary Bullard (Grey Engineering) and Teresa Kines (Dean of Davidson County Community College Davie Campus). Spectators were able to follow the competition online through a live leaderboard. A middle school and elementary school division champion and runner up were crowned. In the elementary division, Team Cougars from Cornatzer Elementary (Annamarie Sloan, Isabel Harrelson, Lauren Patterson, and Brianna Robbins) were crowned as champion. Coming home with a runner-up title was the Coca Cola Cavaliers (Zachary Rodgers and Hank West) from Shady Grove. In the middle school division, The Sparkly Penguins (Tyler Zickmund, Henry Dillon-Whitehead, and Justin Boardwine) from South Davie rose to the top to claim the championship, while the North Davie Team RARP (Jonathan Houghton) earned runner-up honors.

This year, an engineering and design element was added to the competition. School teams unveiled their limited edition Davie County tractor built out of Lego NXT Mindstorm parts. This working prototype was displayed for all spectators to observe along with a digital presentation that included images, video and text that described their tractor, documented their journey, as well as their engineering and design process. The tractor competition was judged by Clint Junker (Davie County School Board Vice-Chair), Avery Haynes (RockTenn), Jesse Ledbetter (Davie County Schools CTE Teacher), and Joshua Houghton (Davie County Schools LAN Engineer). In the end, William Ellis Middle School and its team of engineers (Nolan Tucker, Peyton Freeman, and Christian Martens) earned tractor design champion honors. The William Ellis tractor design included multiple attachments, a power take off generator, remote control features and a double NXT Mindstorm brick configuration. To view the presentations for all schools that competed in the tractor design visit http://goo.gl/mkTKLj.

The final trophy of the evening was awarded to the team that earned the highest combined score from the farm to fork challenges, design of the tractor and the presentation of their tractor design. Team Cougars from Cornatzer Elementary School, who earned 260.5 total points on the evening, claimed the Grand Championship trophy. Coach Leah Hayes commented, “This was a total school effort, Team Cougars worked together with Team Cornatzer (Rachel Devereaux, Tyler Hayes, Zeb Chapman, Sophia Barnett) to design the tractor, create the presentation and program the robots. This was a win for Cornatzer Elementary School!”

Farm to Fork Challenges

1. Hay Bale: Start at the barn and travel to the hay field. Using an attachment, collect the hay bale (4x4 block 2 legos high placed on the large hay roll) and deliver to the horses in the corral. Return to the barn. 15 points

2. Milk Delivery: Start at the barn and follow the dirt road using the light sensor and travel to the loading dock. Just before arriving at the loading dock, turn around and back into the loading dock using the touch sensor to stop (touching the wall). Pause for 3 seconds to deliver the milk for processing, then following the road with the light sensor, return to the barn. 35 points

3. Eggs: Hens in the hen house have just laid fresh eggs. Start at the barn and travel to the chicken coop. Collect the two eggs using an attachment and deliver them to the basket on the table. Both eggs must come to a rest on the image of the basket.

15 points

4. Horse Corral: Start at the barn and travel to the horse pasture. Collect both horses using an attachment and return them to the corral without touching the fences. Return to the barn. 20 points

Note: Horses may be placed on any two of the three images of the horses

5. Sow the Field: Start at the barn and travel to the corn field. Sow the field for planting by following the lines using the light sensor. The tractor must travel back and forth along all four lines. Return to the barn. 25 points

6. Grape Jelly: Start at the barn and travel to the vineyard to "collect" grapes. Then travel to the grapes, keeping both wheels inside the circle, spin 1080⁰ (3 complete spins). Travel to the processing plant and pause for 2 seconds. Bring the grape jelly to the table. 30 points

Note: This challenge is designed for movement around the mat. Do not pick-up or deliver actual pieces.

New 7. Apple Picking: Start at the Barn and travel to one of the two apple trees. Pick the apple from the tree using the griper attachment (file can be downloaded from bottom of page). Travel to the table and drop the apple in the basket (hitting the image of the basket). 25 points

Note: The TREE is a toilet paper roll with the red ball on top placed on one of the two brown circles with the x in it. One is near the 4 lines for sow the field the other is near the hen house.

New 8. Cows to the Barn: A severe storm is in the forecast. Start at the barn and travel to the cows. Using an attachment, retrieve the cows and return them to the barn. 15 points

New 9. Grain to the Granary: Start at the barn and travel to the Granary carrying 6 pieces of grain in an attachment. Dump the grain over the fence into a bin (4 out of 6 pieces need to get into the bin). Return to the barn. 25 points

Note: Use small lego pieces for grain. Build a bin for your teams. The bin MUST be no bigger then the hash marks (Black L) on the mat on the other side of the fence next to the granary.

New 10. Grain Bin Delivery: Start at the Barn and travel to the bin. Using an attachment, collect the bin and deliver to the loading dock. Return to the barn. 30 points

Complete Grain to the Granary and Grain Bin Delivery together in one run: BONUS 30 points = 85 points