Now that we actually had a handle on how to make a functional robot out of LEGOs, it was time to actually design and make a 'bot worthy of competition.

Or would, at least, you know, qualify.

We had grand ideas at the start of 6.270, of how our bot would run on a synchro drive and do all sorts of nifty things. It was at this point that we took a look at reality and hammered out a design that was 1) possible, and 2) worked.

First of all, we decided that synchro drive, while fun and interesting, was impractical because we wanted our robot to have a definite front.

The reason for the definate front was that our strategy would be to roll over the balls on the table, determine what color they were, then to sort them into the appropriate compartment.

To do this, we decided to take our cute 'lil bot and basically expand the base so as to create the compartments for the balls. We would also add to the front a large funnel after a one-way gate. In the middle, there would be a servo-controlled gate that would close off one compartment or another, depending on what the sensor detected the color to be.

We did add one pack of the Hawker batteries for extra power. This increased the weight, so we decided to center the weight so that it was fairly evenly distributed, rather than make one end heavier/lighter than the other.

Of course, after all this, our 'bot wasn't exactly "little" anymore. It did, however, fit into the box so we were happy.

It was also at this point that we decided to call our 'bot "Katamari", in honor of our slight addicition to the game Katamari Damacy. You pick up random stuff in the game with an incredibly sticky ball and hoard them, we wanted our robot to pick up balls in the game and hoard them.