RESEARCH PROJECT

SOLUTION DESIGN OVERVIEW

We started with building prototypes of basic lego based tops and beyblades. We found inspiration and  ideas from a youtube channel by AP Studios. 

Next, we were contacted by Mr. Andrew Clark of Project Bucephalus, an FLL Team from Wollongong, Australia. Mr. Clark had seen our survey and liked our concept and shared ideas on how we could improve our designs. He encouraged the team to seek out experts and try to understand the science behind Beyblades. He shared a design for a SPIKE based automatic launcher that was designed by his team. He helped us understand that having automated launchers will help kids with disabilities and older beyblade enthusiasts who are too weak to use a traditional rip launcher.

We began our search for beybalde experts and contacted several chapters of the World Beyblade Organization. We were lucky to be introduced to Mr. Srimanth Adusimilli, a competitive beyblader, whose passions include Lego's, BeyBlades and teaching kids STEM education. Mr. Adusimilli met with us and helped us understand the physics of a good bey blade design (Newton's Laws of Motion, center of gravity, launch angle, compound gear trains), types of Beyblade designs (Attack, Defense, Balanced), etc. He encouraged us to  come up with a standard set of rules to develop a basic lego beyblade league. We called our work MARC LegoBlades.

We developed a basic rules packet, standardized the launcher and blade attachment design (based upon LEGO part# 3941 & 6222), made a sizing tool and then met with Mr. Spencer Manns, Murtaza Mahuwala & Eric of the Texas Beyblade League. They were happy with our design prototypes, tools and basic rule set. Mr. Manns suggested that rather than restrict ourselves to traditional beyblade tournament types (burst, mfp), we need to explore creating additional tournament types that would be fun for kids. Based on his feedback, we developed new tournament types (LegoBlade Assasins & The Arena) 

We then presented our research and prototypes to all the professionals and audience at the Georgia Ultimate Reboot Series 009 Beyblade Tournament. We created a survey to gauge interest and comments on our project from participants at the tournament. Based on the survey results and our interviews at the tournament, we conclude that professional beybladers like our project. Many of the kids in the audience showed interest and spent a lot of time testing and playing with our Beyblade and launcher prototypes.

CONCLUSION

Based upon the feedback we have received, we believe that LegoBlades will be an excellent starter tool to get  adults and kids interested in beyblades. LEGOs are some of the cheapest and most kid friendly toys in the world. Almost every kid has a box of LEGO's in their closet.

LegoBlades provide an excellent framework for kids to develop and apply their knowledge of science, technology, engineering and math. Many professional blader's we met were Engineers.

LegoBlades have an additional advantage of offering complete creative (artistic) freedom to the style of Beyblade (Colors, Shape, etc). The choices with lego are endless and the shape and color of a LegoBlade is only restricted by the imagination of the player.

We conclude that LegoBlades combine technology and the arts to help engage others or increase participation in Beyblades.