High Tech Kids

Still Following Lines

2011-12-23T18:00:00.000-08:00

While this could have been the year of the line follower, it is instead the year without a perfect score. Those thick black lines with generous white borders leading directly to important items on the mat. Such promise.

To promote the use of line following at State, here are two highlights from the Regionals.

At the first regional of the year, a team complained that this algorithm was too slow. It is. In fact, it's remarkable that it moves at all. Look closely. If a motor is turned on, it's immediately turned off.

It's even more mysterious when considering the firmware on the NXT. The firmware worries about the motors and the sensors and at regular intervals gives up a slice of time for our programs. During that slice of time, one or more program blocks may be processed. Given the position of the motor off block, no movement might be expected.

Nothing like a test. It works. Add it to your list of line following algorithms.

How to impress a Judge

At another Regional, when asked if they used any sensors, a team said no. Did you try any? No. How about early in the season? Oh, you mean a line follower? Yea, ah . . . I don't think it's on this laptop.

Then he clicked New and proceeded to program the standard line follower from memory.

I don't suggest doing this. There shouldn't be enough time. I was impressed.

Legoland Tournament - Day 2

2011-05-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

Our team met back at LEGOLAND early on Sunday morning. The first thing we did was head over to the robot performance arena for a practice run. The robot performance area had a big stage with two sets of tables. The spectators watched from raised seats on one side of the state. For the practice run, there was no scoring. A referee just blew a whistle when it was time to start the 2:30 minute run, and the teams ran their robots. Our team was not quite ready when the whistle blew, and the run did not go well, but at least the light sensors worked properly indoors.

Next on our schedule was the "Core Values" judging. For this tournament, this replaced the Teamwork judging portion of the tournaments in Minnesota. The overall scoring was slightly different at this tournament also - it was 33% for Project, 33% for Core Values, and 33% for Robot performance and design. For the Core Values judging, the team had to first perform a teamwork exercise. The team was given a box of bricks, and told to build something that showed how our team represented core values.

Our team built two figures shaking hands - one represented The Fizz, and the other represented another team. After the exercise, the judging involved the more usual questions and answers.

After core values judging, the team had our three robot performance runs. How the robot runs started was a little different than in Minnesota. There was no "3 2 1 Lego" - instead, the teams were given a 10 second warning, and then a whistle was blown to signal the start. The first run went OK. The robot successfully inserted the bone bridge in the leg, but kicking the soccer ball failed, so the team scored 320. The second run had problems. The other team hit the patent hand before us. Then inserting the stent failed. Several other missions failed, and the run scored 255.

Before the final run, the team made a small adjustment to the program for the special bone repair mission. The adjustment worked and we scored the goal! We scored 345 on our final run, missing only the common bone repair on the missions the robot attempted (our maximum possible point total was 370). This score put us in 3rd place at that time (the afternoon runs pushed us down to 5th).

After lunch, the team headed over to the LEGOLAND water park. The team enjoyed the water slides, and floating on the lazy river collected LEGO bricks. It was a great way to relax after the excitement of the morning.

Around 4:30pm, the team headed back to the LEGOLAND lawn for the closing ceremonies. Our team did not win any awards, but we were happy to see The Things and Just Ducky both win trophies for different project categories. Another team from Minnesota, the TwizBots, finished 19th in robot performance. Also, one of the teams in our pit area, The 4th Motor from Wisconsin, was named the overall champion.

After the tournament ended, the team celebrated the season with dinner together at a nearby restaurant. The restaurant even had a giant wall of "fizzy" bubbles that changed color. It was great end to a fun trip and a wonderful season.

Legoland Tournament - Day 1

2011-05-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

Our team members arrived in San Diego one or two days before the tournament. Some kids visited family and friends in the San Diego area, some visited the San Diego Zoo, and another visited the Wild Animal Park.

On Saturday, the team members joined up at LEGOLAND, which is in Carlsbad, about 35 miles north of San Diego harbor. After the team checked in, we were allowed to enter the park. We're escorted to our pit area, which was in the Build and Test building.

There were seven other teams in our room in the Build and Test building, including an team from Wisconsin, The 4th Motor, and many other teams in the room next door. Many teams exchanged small items. Our team gave out Zotz candy (it's fizzy). Buttons were a popular item to exchange, and the girls on our team liked to collect them.

After our team unpacked and said hello to the other teams, we did a quick rehearsal for our Project presentation, and then headed out for the opening ceremonies.

The opening ceremonies were held on the LEGOLAND lawn, right next to Miniland. Miniland is incredible! It has miniature replicas of seven areas of the USA, including New York city and Washington DC. We watched a marching band near the Capitol building, a motorcade deliver the president to the White House, and trolley cars go up the hills of San Francisco.

After opening ceremonies, we had to quickly get ready for our robot and project judging sessions. The judging sessions were held in small tents. Because the tents were small, there was only room for a couple of spectators. Robot judging was first. It was a little different from our normal technical judging, because the judges didn't split some team members off for a separate programming interview.

Project judging was just ten minutes after the technical judging. It was also in a small tent. This session was only for the project presentation and related questions - there would be a separate Core Values judging the next day.

After the judging, the team tried out the robot on one of the practice tables available to the teams. The table was just outside the building for our pit area. It was terrible! Most of the missions failed! We quickly realized that having the table outside in the sunlight caused all of our light sensor readings to have problems. The robot performance runs the next day would be inside, but it was still strange to see the robot behave so badly on the practice table.

After lunch, the team went off to explore LEGOLAND while waiting for callbacks to be posted. We were called back for Robot Design!

The robot design callback was also held in a tent, but this time there were many more judges.

After our callback, we went back to exploring LEGOLAND. There were many fun rides, including the Lost Kingdom laser shooter ride, and the Technic Roller Coaster. Too soon, the park was closing for the day. The team left to get ready for the next day.

Fizz places 5th in Robot Performance, The Things and Just Duck-e win awards

2011-05-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

Hello from LegoLand!

The Fizz finished 5th out of 75 team in robot performance, scoring 345 in our best round.

Fellow teams from Minnesota, The Things, and Just Duck-e, won awards in research. The Things placed second in research presentation, and Just Duck-e placed second in research solution.

We'll put up more posts with pictures and details of our exciting trip soon!

Line Follower

2011-05-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hello again!
Another technique that our team has used for several years is a two light sensor line following MyBlock. The MyBlock uses the difference between the light sensor readings to calculate a value to feed into a Move blocks steering input.

We wrote up an explanation of this MyBlock and made it available.

We hope you find it useful.

Hydrogen Peroxide visiting the Gateway Arch

2011-04-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

The team found time on Saturday morning to visit the Gateway Arch. It was a beautiful day to visit it with all the other FIRST teams. The team also went to the Black Eye Peas concert that was only open to the FIRST teams.

Hydrogen Peroxide - 3rd Place Mechancial Design Award

2011-04-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

There was tremendous competition in every category. We were awarded 3rd place in Mechancial Design. I was a great way to end a great season in FLL.

Distance Move MyBlock

2011-04-30T09:37:00.001-07:00

Hello again! It's The Fizz! Today, we're going to tell you how a lot of our missions became so successful. In fact, without this simple little technique, we probably would not have done FLL for more than one year. The technique of which we speak is a MyBlock we call "Distance Move."

Ordinary move blocks will not take values in centimeters or inches, only motor rotations, seconds, degrees, or infinite. Using centimeters would be so much easier, don't you think?

To start, you need to know the amount of centimeters your robot will travel in one rotation (360 degrees) of the motors powering your wheels. If your wheels are directly connected to your motors, that value will be equal to the circumference of your wheels, or pi times the wheel diameter (Lego wheels have the diameter listed on the wheel rim in millimeters). Then, divide 360 by the circumference (measured in cm.) to find the number of motor degrees need to move one centimeter. It's that easy! Just a simple calculation, and you are through! The problem is when you have to do that every time you measure a distance. So we made a block that does it for us.

To begin, start the LEGO MINDSTORM NXT program on your computer and start a new program. Name it anything you like.

To program a block like this, you'll need to create and use variables. To create a new variable with a good descriptive name, click on the "Edit" menu option, and select "Define variables". In the box that appears, click the "Create" button, and enter "Distance" as the name and select "Number" as the datatype. Then click the "Close" button.

Now, in your new program, insert a variable block. In the list of available variables, select "Distance", and set the action for "write." For the value, enter some initial number like 10 or 20. This number variable will represent the distance you wish the robot to move.

Next, insert another variable. In the list of available variables, again select "Distance". This time, set the action to "read".

Insert a math block and set it for multiplication. Using the data hub and data wires, connect the value of the second variable block to the "A" slot and set the "B" as 360. Connect the result to the "A" slot of another math block, this time set at division. Set the "B" as your wheel circumference. The result will be the number of degrees the wheel must turn to go x centimeters. Add a move block and set it for degrees and whatever direction in which you need the motors to turn. Open the data hub and connect the result of the division block to the "duration" plug. There you go!

Click on the distance "write" variable block (first block in the picture above) and make sure you gave it a value greater than zero. Download this program to your robot and test to make sure this works correctly. The robot should move a distance equal to what you entered for the distance variable. You may have to change the direction in the Move block to get your robot to move forward instead of backward.

But here's the next problem; you would have to make a separate move block for every time you want to use a different power setting.

Once more, we will solve this problem with variables. Create another number variable named "Power".

In your program, insert a "write" variable block at the beginning and a "read" variable block after it, using the new "Power" variable for both blocks. The next part is easy: just connect the number value of the "read" variable to the "power" plug in the move block.

Click on the power "write" variable block and give it a value. Again, download to your robot and test to make sure this works correctly.

Now you're set to make it a MyBlock. Select everything except the four variable blocks at the beginning and go to "Edit-create new MyBlock." Choose a name and an icon and click "Finish." The MyBlock will appear in the program.

Click on the new MyBlock. Enter settings for your custom distance and power in the panel that appears at the bottom of the screen.

Before you test the initial MyBlock, be sure to delete the 4 variable blocks for power and distance in the test program, "read" and "write" alike. Otherwise, the values specified in the variable blocks will override the numbers you enter in the panel for the distance MyBlock.

Using a MyBlock like this greatly simplifies mission planning and programming. We have found it very useful and hope you do also.

Team picture after all the Judging sessions

2011-04-29T15:16:00.001-07:00

The programming judges stopped by the pit today to go over all the code.

Team in the Dome

2011-04-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the team just before running the 400. They looked pretty relaxed.

Give aways were well received

2011-04-29T14:44:00.001-07:00

In addition to our Hydrogen Peroxide pens, we had 3 USB 4 GB Lego flash drives that we had people enter a drawing for a chance to win. We had a lot of people who really wanted them. They were won by FLL team members from Alaska, Virginia and Utah. We winner from Alaska was not present because we was in urgent care. We hope this will make Riley feel better.

Lucky Number 7

2011-04-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

Ever since we were issued the team number 7, I knew we were going to have more than our fair share of good luck. Well, we had one more piece of that good luck again today. On the first run today, the team ran a perfect 400. We were one of only two teams that had 400's on the first round. It was obviously very exciting.

The 2nd round didn't go so well. Our 1.4 second patent mission was too slow. The bone bridge went in but did not stay there. The stent would not line up.

The 3rd round was very close to perfect. Just the stent had problems, much like the 2nd round. They scored 370 points.

In the end, 6 teams in total scored a 400.

Busy First Day in St. Louis

2011-04-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

Thursday has come to a close and it was very busy day. We had early Research, robot and Core value presentations times. So, there was no time to practice in the morning. It didn't matter, they did a great job on all the areas.

Later in the day, we had 2 practice robot runs. First one was a 345 with the cast coming up short and the robot froze on the line going to the stent. Changes were made and they worked on the next run. The only problem on the second run was one of the tissue cells only flipped half way, but in an attempt to rerun it, the robot was a few seconds short of parking. If the rerun would have been skipped, it would have been a 395. But becuase of running out of time, it was another 345. There was at least one team the had both 400 runs. It was just practice and really ones are tomorrow.

The Opening ceremony was tonight and we saw some really good entertainment provided by other FLL teams. Japan gave a very moving speech thanking the world for all of their help and kind words in dealing with the disaster there.

So far, so good.

Packed and ready for the Tournament

2011-04-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

Graham, Pushkar, Andrew and Jacob have worked hard since the state tournament to make their robot and research solution's prototype better. The patent can now be grabbed in 1.4 seconds. You might notice the team picture is missing one team member. Jacob's schedule did not permit him to make the trip, but he has there with the team preparing them for the tournament.

The cars are packed and we leave right after school on Tuesday. We will drive to Cedar Rapids, IA that night. We will finished the journey to St. Louis on Wednesday morning.

The highly collectable Hydrogen Peroxide pens have also arrived. They will be handed out during the tournament.

See you in California, fellow Minnesotans!

2011-04-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to find out that the following MN teams will also be attending the tournament in California: The Things, The TwizBots, Just Ducky, and the Thermionix.

Here is a google map that shows the locations of all of the competing teams.

Hydrogen Peroxide is going to the World Festival 2011!!!

2011-04-08T08:51:00.001-07:00

Congrats Hydrogen Peroxide!!!!

More on "Magic of Science Night"

2011-04-03T11:42:00.000-07:00

Our night at the "Magic Of Science Night" was a big success! A lot of kids seemed interested in Lego League. I guess they weren't used to LEGOs that were supposed to move, because they kept playing with the models. We let a few run missions and they seemed very keen to see how things worked. One team member recalls a kid who "kept putting the eyeball on the person" and having to say "'No, not yet! It's not time for that now!'" Overall, the team had fun going around and seeing other exhibits such as ones sporting rockets, chemicals, bugs and tubes of elements. We created a lot of interest in Lego League. Even though we handed out many brochures, we still have tons, so if you want some, let us know.

Magic of Science night at Lincoln Elementary

2011-03-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

Hello! Come and see us, The Fizz, at Lincoln Elementary in South Saint Paul. We will be there 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on March 24, 2011. We will be showing all our missions we have and explaining what Lego League is about. Hope you can come and see us! Thank you, and hope to see you there!
The address for the school is:
357 - 9th Ave. North
South Saint Paul, MN 55075

The Fizz

Meet The Fizz

2011-03-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hello, people! Team 3348 The Fizz speaking!

Before anything else is typed, we would like to thank several people, including the people at High Tech Kids and all the FLL volunteers for putting on a great tournament, and also Dr. Daniel Kisch, and Dr. Susan Quick for giving us helpful information for our research project. Also, a big “thank you” to Kim Westra for bringing Lego League to our original school, Salem Hills Elementary, four years ago. Now, let’s go on to other stuff.

Our team is composed of four sixth-graders, all alumni of the Atheneum Gifted Magnet Program in the Inver Grove Heights school district. Two members of our team have been involved in First Lego League since second grade, and the other two started in FLL in the fourth grade. The team members competed as part of the "Mountain Monkeys" for the 2008 Climate Connections season, and as part of the "Flying Banana Splits" for the 2009 Smart Move season.

Our team has a tradition of choosing a new name every year, and this year we chose “The Fizz” because the girls wanted the name to include “bubbles” but the boys didn’t. The name "The Fizz" was suggested as a compromise since bubbles are kind of fizzy.

We have worked hard during practices and tournaments this season, and we were thrilled to be selected as the Division 1 champion this year! In May, we will be heading to Legoland California for the North American Open Championship! We are all very excited. Thanks for reading this blog entry!

SA Championship Event

2010-12-18T09:51:00.000-08:00

The South African Championship took place two weeks ago but I have not had much access to internet to blog about it yet. We have actually arrived home to MN now, but I wanted to finish the blog.

The 6 teams from Mpumalanga did well at the tournament and enjoyed the day very much. The venue was a big science museum in Joburg so any down time the kids had they filled by doing science experiments. It was really fun to see the teams we have been mentoring do well and enjoy sharing all their efforts with the judges and other teams. One of the teams got the presentation award and another got the design award. We were all very proud of them! The g33k$ also did well and met two of their big goals for the season. They got that elusive 400 and earned the opportunity to represent South Africa at the World Festival in April. Although there has been some controversy about the team as they are made up of South Africans and Americans, the judges decided in the end that because this team demonstrated the FLL core values to such an extreme that they should be given the spot at the WF. We are thrilled to have this opportunity and will be proud to represent South Africa in this way. We are excited to have our South African friends come to the US as well. The kids have set new goals and are trying to figure out how to continue moving forward while separated by thousands of miles and many time zones. One thing they are focusing on now is continuing their outreach with teams in each of their respective towns. They hope to each host a clinic or two over the next couple months.

I am proud of the work we have done in South Africa and am thankful to many people for giving us such a great opportunity for sharing and learning. I hope to continue my involvement there as they move the program forward and expand to include more kids.

Thanks for reading the blog.
Deb

Preparing for the SA Championship Tournament

2010-11-29T04:19:00.000-08:00

The SA Championship event will take place in a few days. Twenty six teams from all over the country (some have to fly to the event...it is a big country) will come to Joburg for this event. It is held at a large science museum which we hear is a great venue for the teams. We are excited to meet other teams from other areas. All the teams in the Nelspruit area are busy fine tuning their presentations and robots. We are continuing to enjoy working with these teams each week as their excitement is high and they learned much at the last tournament. We hope many of them will put up their best performances. It will be really fun to have so many people there that we know so we can all support each other.

Today the g33k$ will visit an eye surgeon to share their project as well as ask a few more questions they are wanting information on. They have revamped their skit so are busy memorizing new lines as well. The robot is mostly behaving...isn't it interesting how problems that have NEVER happened before show up the week of the tournament?

Hope the tournaments in MN are going smoothly.
Deb

Mpumalanga Tournament

2010-11-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

We had our tournament yesterday and all indications are that it went well. It was a first for this area and plans are already underway to host a bigger tournament next year. There is talk amongst the local organizers of expanding the number of teams, booking a larger venue, training for judges, coaches and teams, etc...

The event was mostly the same as how tournaments are run in the US with a few exceptions. The pit areas were decorated to the hilt - if I had better bandwidth I would post a few pictures. Parents were heavily involved in this. Teamwork judging took place in the pits only. The kids were given 8 minutes to set up and run their presentation as well as answer questions from judges. No timer was used for the 5 minute presentation limit. No feedback was given to teams at all. No judges comments, no scores, nothing until awards were handed out. Kids were allowed on the official tables to practice (this was nice as we all know how the official tables are a little different than our practice tables after rubber bands stretch, models get loosened, etc). The noise was similar but there was a LOT of cheering by kids - not loud music really, but kid noise.

The g33ks scored 360, 350 and 375 (the cast fell off which is not a common problem....whereas other missions that are a bit on the edge worked fine....it is a tournament after all). The next highest scores were 275 and 210. In two weeks the SA Championship event will take place and 6 teams from our area are advancing. It was going to be 5 but the overall scores of two teams were withing .4 of each other so organizers made the call to bring 6 teams. This was great because the 6th team really displayed many of the FLL core values and will represent the area very well. We will continue to mentor 4 of these teams for this next tournament.

I'm curious to know how the first tournament went in MN?!

Deb

Tournaments

2010-11-16T21:28:00.000-08:00

The Mpumalanga competition takes place on Saturday, November 20th in Nelspruit. There have been 3 other tournaments in South Africa to date. The highest board score is 225 so far. I wonder how this compares to other parts of the world? The South African championship tournament is two weeks later on December 4th in Johannesburg. The top five teams from each of the 4 regions will be attending and from there the top three teams will have opportunities to attend the World Festival, European Open and the festival in Thailand.

The teams we have been mentoring are in varying states of readiness. The team we worked with on Monday has the simplest robot I have ever seen competing. I think there are 21 pieces total. We are all excited to see how a competition is run in another country and look forward to the fun that happens at all tournaments. A few things I know are different as we have technical and presentation judging in the morning and do board runs in the afternoon. There is also no head to head competition. Our pit space is 2 meters by 3 meters and is located in the gym with the competition tables. I have heard the kids talk about how loud it is - so some things are the same! I wonder if the refs will wear crazy hats or do a dance for the kids?

On a side note we have been working with some kids at an HIV/AIDS orphanage ranging from age 4 to 12. We have introduced some simple machines and built fans and merry-go-rounds with them. Today we are bringing the RCX parts along and introducing robotics. The kids have loved all the LEGO people, polar bears and bicycles we donated two weeks ago.

Good luck to all the teams competing this weekend.
Deb

Practice Tournament

2010-10-31T00:12:00.000-07:00

My team (the g33k$) provided mentoring during the day while I helped train volunteers for judging at the tournament we are hosting on Nov 20th. The program runs a bit differently here and since it is relatively new there is a lot for people (and me!) to learn. It was a great day for the kids and I am hopeful those attending recognized areas to work on for the next 3 weeks in preparation for their tournament. Perhaps the best part of the day was meeting parents of the kids we have been working with weekly. These parents are likely to become part of the core group that will continue to develop this program in future years. One dad is ready to take over a team and start practicing in his garage this week. Many parents commented on how great a program FLL is...how it gives their child a chance to think differently than they are used to in school. A judge commented how it allows kids opportunities to talk with adults and researchers about real world problems. She also felt that kids in South Africa are at a disadvantage compared to American kids as far as overall educational opportunities. She believes that kids here are not encouraged to think about their role in "real world" problems. The parents and judges all had some interesting conversation about how the program here can continue to develop over the years.

It seems people here don't have knowledge of or experience using Scott or the Q&A for clarifications on the rules, whereas my teams have checked the Q&A daily in past seasons. The challenge was released here a week before it was released everywhere else and some things changed during that interim week I guess (e.g. how the while blood cells could be delivered). It was understood here that the cells had to be touching the patient area, now it is understood that they have to get to the patient area.

Without good and consistent access to the internet, it is difficult to encourage teams to check the Q&A frequently. Due to this it also continues to be difficult to encourage internet exploration and e-mail as a means to connect with experts. We are stretched to think of ways for FLL to move forward without this access.

My team participated in the practice event as well. Their high score was only 260 so it showed them there is still work to be done.
Deb

Getting ready for tournaments

2010-10-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

The teams here are busy getting ready for our upcoming practice tournament on Oct 30th and our regional tournament on November 20th. We have gotten permission to host the regional tournament in our community as the majority of the teams are located here. We will use the 30th event to give the kids practice in a tournament-type experience as well as train judges. It looks like the FLL people here are interested in using the MN model as a guide to judging. Thanks to Norm and Holly for sharing the resources!

The team I am coaching - the g33k$ (name changed from JINX-JINX) - are moving right along. They completed the BAD CELLS first (because they thought it would be the hardest mission) and have divided the board into two sections. The hand and everything west in section one and the east side of the board in section two. They are hopeful that they will earn a 400 and have time to spare...we'll see. Once the parts we are having sent from Minnesota arrive, they can complete all the attachments. There is no quick access to materials here and most teams we work with have one NXT kit as their only materials. I tease my team that one year they should be required to solve the board with just one NXT kit.....no extra anything. It is a good lesson for them to see how abundant their resources are back home.

The teams we have been working with weekly are in a variety of stages of making progress. Unfortunately, kids here are as overscheduled as American kids and it is difficult to have everyone at practice on any given day. We actually had a team START their season last week but they already have a basic robot design worked out and a good beginning to their project.

My team meet with an optometrist on Friday as they are studying the bionic eye. It is difficult to arrange expert contacts in a brand new community. And although most people do speak English, the accent is still difficult to understand at times. Thankfully we do have some access to internet now and they have made connections to experts in Minnesota as well as Australia.

We hope the MN teams are having fun and making good progress!

Deb

Nelspruit Clinic

2010-10-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

Last week we spent 4 days working with about 45 kids and their coaches. These are the kids we are meeting at their schools about once a week during their normal practice times but since they had a school holiday last week we had more extended time together. I can honestly say that they can all use loops and switches effectively and know how to use light, touch and ultrasonic sensors now. That is a big feat. Perhaps our biggest accomplishment is that not one of the teams has the tribot for their robot design this year....although on day one EVERY team had that for their design. The schools here value discipline highly and follow a curriculum very strictly. Kids are taught there is only one right answer....so I hope we are opening them up to thinking creatively, openly and out of the box. Jaws dropped when they saw Hans and Zac demo their "Rube Goldberg"-type robot from last year. Annika and Laurie also taught with us this week. The coaches are surprised when they see a child (Annika is 12) teaching other children. I hope this will lead to positive discussions about giving kids here an opportunity for mentoring others in years to come.

Deb

Saturday, September 25th

2010-09-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

We have just spent 3 days in Pretoria working with the University of South Africa's community engagement program. They have an initiative to work with FLL in the area. One afternoon I worked with 14 coaches which gave them some much needed time to connect with one another and meet and talk about ideas and problems. With about 90 teams in the whole country it seems there are 4-5 clusters of cities that have FLL and the programs are not well connected. On Friday, Hans, Annika, Mark, Zac, Laurie and I worked with about 65 kids for the whole day. We taught sessions on programming, building, team problem solving, public speaking, sensors and board strategy. It was well received and a great experience for the kids to share what they know and love. This morning I attended a strategic planning meeting with the Community Engagement folks, a few coaches and the Operational Partner coordinator. It was a great discussion about how the university can take a leadership role in expanding its connections to kids. It seems we will have an ongoing role with them as they move forward. There are many barriers here that we do not face in America but of course, many of the issues are also the same - such as funding and adequate training for coaches. But they also have the issues of lack of connection to the internet for many of the kids/schools and high import taxes on LEGO materials. I enjoyed being part of the discussion and sharing what Minnesota does to provide such a great program for kids. They especially were interested in hosting a "research" day at the university, trying to get more corporate sponsorship by engaging businesses in a robotics event, and getting more older kids to act as mentors and volunteers within the program.

Deb

Meeting the teams

2010-09-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

We have made visits to most of the teams with whom we will be working. Notice that all the kids wear school uniforms. Hans and Annika are doing a great job explaining much about FLL and the basics of robotics.

The team I am coaching (the one my kids are on) is called JINX-JINX which means something like computer wizard in Afrikaans. We have three Americans and three South Africans. As new teams go, they are still getting to know each other. Since we live 45 minutes from the nearest town on a forestry farm we hold practices on weekends and all the kids sleepover. It is a busy time as the younger kids in our host family also have a team that meets there on weekends. Twelve kids at a slumber party makes for interesting times.

The biggest need I hear from teams that do have experience is their desire to learn how to use sensors. We have a three day clinic in Pretoria (4 hours from here) we are teaching at next week and a 4 day clinic we are running in Nelspruit (our town) the following week. We hope to reach over 100 kids at these events.

Deb

Getting started in the schools

2010-09-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

We have started working with the 16 teams that are in the area. All but one team is run through an after school program and have kids ranging from 9-16 years of age. There are a few individuals at each school that have a year or two experience but 95% of the kids and coaches are brand new to FLL. They all have big eyes and tilted heads as we explain how everything works. One kid today asked me if I could show him how to do each of the missions so he would be able to do FLL, otherwise he thought it would be way too hard. I look forward to the challenges of getting the coaches and kids moving forward.

The crocodile robot from HTK is making a good impression on all the kids. Thanks for sharing that!

Deb

Getting ready for South Africa

2010-08-08T09:48:00.001-07:00

Hello FLLers,

Some of you may remember the Techno Travelers from our participation in MN FLL over the last 5 seasons. Well, we are heading to South Africa on Tuesday, August 10th to experience a season of FLL over there. I will be helping mentor teams and coaches as well as teach at some clinics for the FLL program across South Africa. A FLL family in the Nelspruit area has generously agreed to host us while we are there. My husband, Mark, will be with us for 2 of our 4 months and volunteering at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Leadership. My two kids, Hans (14) and Annika (12) will be joining FLL teams in South Africa and helping me teach at the FLL clinics and in the schools. To round out this dream come true, Hans's teammate for the past 5 years, Zac (15), and his mom Michele and three siblings are also coming along.

The South African FLL season runs August 28th - early December. This includes regional tournaments in October and November and their "state"/country wide championship in early December. It will be a whirlwind trip as we hope to get in a couple safaris and some sightseeing as well. This blog will focus on FLL, if you are interested, our family blog is at: http://hansonjohnsongotosouthafrica.blogspot.com/

Deb

Sharing About Our Trip

2010-07-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

Our team will be sharing about our trip on August 10th at 7pm. Please join us to hear about our wonderful experience and watch a slide show of photos from Turkey. The presentation will be at Great River Energy 17845 Highway 10 Elk River - 1/4 mile west of the junction of Highways 10, 169, and 101. After turning off Highway 10 into the GRE driveway, turn right and continue up the hill, under the skyway between the buildings, and around to the parking lot behind the building. Any questions, please contact Steve Vrchota at 612-747-4996.

Hope to see you there!
The Things

Johnson Robotics to S Africa

2010-07-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

Deb,

Feel free to post here!

Good luck and have so much fun.

Sarah and Holly

High Tech Kids

End of Trip

2010-06-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

The second day of the tournament we had teamwork judging and our other two robot performance runs. First, we had teamwork judging. After a strong teamwork judging, we had to modify our robot because the lighting was very inconsistent at the robot performance table. We also had to recalibrate our robot's light sensors. After a decent second robot perfomance round, we were still having a lot of problems with our light sensors so the team from Norway offered to show us a new way to calibrate our light sensors. Even though we didn't have time to finish it before our last robot performance round, they still showed us how to program it. After our last robot perfomance round, we got a call-back for teamwork judging which went very well. At the closing ceremonies, some of the teams did a traditional dance from their own country. After that they started the awards ceremonies. Although we did not win the teamwork award, we were in the top three in all of Europe. After the awards ceremonies, all of the teams packed up there pits. After all the teams were done, we all boarded our bus and drove to a place called Minia-Turk, which is a park of a mini model of Turkey.

The next day we went to the Grand Bazaar. Some of the team also went to the Archaeological Museum and the cistern, which is an ancient underground water storage tank.

The next day, we all got up early to eat breackfast and then we took a bus to the airport. After making it through the very tight security, we waited around for about an hour until we boarded our plane back to New York. Once the plane took off, we all had our own touch screen entertainment so we could watch movies, play games, watch TV, and listen to music. After we landed in New York, we took a van to our hotel, ate some New York pizza, and Went To Bed!

The next morning, we got a light breakfast and took a bus to the Statue of Liberty. While we were waiting, we grabbed a quick pastry at a local pastry shop and then we boarded our ferry. After driving around the statue, we docked and walked around the base of the statue. A little while later we got back on the boat and rode to Ellis Island where we learned about immigrants coming into the U.S.

Then it was time to go back home. We had an incredible trip - met new friends, experienced a different culture, saw amazing sites, tasted delicous food, and had the honor of competiting with some awesome teams. We would like to thank everyone for all of their support - 4H, Hightech Kids, First Lego League, many businesses in the Elk River area, Delta airlines, friends and family.

Heading Home

2010-06-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

The team will blog more details and post photos when they get home (and get some sleep), but until then here is the very brief update. They did an awesome job at the tournament. They were one of three teams to get a call back for the teamwork award. Although, they did not win the award, it was a huge honor to be in the top 3. The level of competition at the tournament was incredible.

Friday was spent seeing a few more sites that they didn't get to before the tournament, a little more shopping, eating some more great Turkish food (they said they had some baklava from a street vendor that was delicious), and then some swimming at the hotel. They got up early this morning and headed to the airport for the long flight home (except possibly Matt, he said he was going to move to Istanbul and fish for a living). They will spend the night in New York (not enough time to make the connecting flight home), make a whirlwind stop to see the Statue of Liberty in the morning, and then be back home tomorrow evening. They all say it has been the most incredible week. Thanks to all for the support!

Day 2 of Competition

2010-06-03T04:07:00.000-07:00

Today, at 10:45, we had our teamwork judging. It works differently then at home, at this competition the judges come to you at your station. The kids did a great job as far as we could tell. There is a pic of them with the coaches.

Other pics are of the team with some new friends. the Olleh Korea team, which are right next to us, are the Energizer bunnies of the event with their consistent positive attitude and energy. The have a song we will never forget (just ask any Thing to sing it to you) olleh, olleh-olleh-lalalal...

The next team in green is the Norway team. They were good enough to give us some help with our light senors. The third team is from northern Italy. They were fun to talk with and expressed a desire to come the USA some day.

We had our next round at 11:35 and the robot did pretty well (about 280). A few more tweeks and it should be more than 300 (that's our hope anyway). The other pics are from that table run.

Ohhh, breaking news......we just heard we got a team work call back, which in and of itself is an honor, but we get to go before the judges again to go for an award in this area.

After the event ends, we are being taken to Miniaturk to see and have dinner.

First Rounds of Competition

2010-06-02T10:09:00.001-07:00

Well the competion table went pretty well for the issues the sensors were having. It didn't go as well as at home, but after the changes the kids are making I am sure our runs at the table will go better tomorrow.

Presentation on the other hand went extremely well - this team excels at public speaking. Their ability to get their points across clearly and concisely is incredible. In this part of the competition their team work and leadership really shows through as well. What a great bunch of kids.

Tonight the FLL people are taking us on a Boshporous cruise and then we will be eating dinner at a transportaion museum. Tomorrow we will have team work judging and 2 more rounds at the table.

Tournament Begins

2010-06-02T05:32:00.000-07:00

We are all set up at the tournament. We have been meeting other robotics teams from all over the world - right here in our little area are teams from South Korea, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Norway, and the United Kingdom. We are off to technical judging.

Sightseeing, sightseeing, & more sightseeing!

2010-06-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

We are doing a quick post to catch up for the last three days. We just got back to the hotel after a relaxing day at the Black Sea.

Sunday 30th
We went to see Aya Sophia and the royal palace called Topkapi. We have included a few pictures. They were really cool places to see. We saw the band play at Topkapi and saw some holy relics. Aya Sophia is a really huge church built by the Romans and converted to a mosque after Constantinople fell in 1453. It was the largest enclosed church until St. Peters was built in Rome 1000 years later. It is as big as a football field inside.

Monday, 31st

Our group split into two groups - one went to Ephesus and one to the islands off the south coast of Instanbul. Ephesus is the ruins of a huge city back in Roman times. It was like walking back in time.

Some of the group used public transportation and visited one of the Prince Islands. We took the tram to the ferry station and took and hour and a half ferry ride to the last island. The tram cost $1.5 lira each way and the ferry was $3 lira each way. It was quite easy to do. The island does not have motorized private vehicles on it. There were some trucks for contruction work and garbage trucks. Bikes were available to rent. They also had horse drawn carriage rides you could take around the island.

Tuesday, 1st

Today our team rented a bus and went on a tour to the beach. On the way to the beach we stopped at a mosque and then we drove to Remelli Fortrus and climbed to the top. It was a long climb up to the top but it was worth the view. Then we went to a town and ate lunch at a place right on the Black Sea. The sea bass was totally awesome,even if it was looking at us. We swam in the warm Black Sea and explored some cave. Got to get to bed, competition is tomorrow.

Saturday May, 29

2010-05-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day! We went to the Blue Mosque in the morning, it was sweet. The architecture was absolutely breathtaking. Every ceiling was covered with mosaics and all of the windows were stained glass. This was an amazing sight that was a once in a lifetime deal. After that we went for a walk to go to the Grand Bazzaar. That place was crazy, but it was cool. Everywhere you went in there people were trying to sell you things. If you could bring the price down by bargaining it was a good idea considering it was a little expensive (for Turkish Lira). At the Grand Bazzaar Ben desperately wanted a hat. The guy offered him 20 lira. Ben didn't realize what that changes into in dollars. Ben offered the guy 12 dollars, which is a little more than the guy asked for, so it wasn't the best exchange. After we were done with the Grand Bazzaar, which we were in there for about three hours, we went back a little ways and had some lunch. Some people went to a pasta place and others went to a stand with some sandwich things. Once we were done eating, we went to the spice market. It was a good place to buy all kinds of things, like different assortments of tea and Turkish Delight. Also, it was really crazy and crowded. When we were at the spice market, we found out that today is the day that the Turks conquered Constantinople, renaming the city Istanbul. This makes today an important day for Turkey. We were a little tired out so we went back to our hotels. After we were done situating we went for a walk. Some of us went to the beach and then went to a cafe with meatball sandwiches and kababs. Everyone else went to a kabab stand. Then we went up and met on the roof of one of the hotels. We were going to play cards, but we have ended up telling random stories. This brings us to present time, so we had an eventful day full of walking and adventure.

~the things

Istanbul

2010-05-28T11:42:00.001-07:00

After a long day of traveling, we made it to Istanbul. We arrived at 10 am (which felt like 2 in the morning). We are having fun, but we are all very tired. It was difficult to sleep on the plane. Today, we visited the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia on the outside and the Hippodrome. Tomorrow we will be seeing the inside of them and checking out the market. Off to catch some zzzzs.

In The Air

2010-05-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

The team is officially on their way to Istanbul!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2010-05-27T13:03:00.001-07:00

The robot made it through another security check and the team has made it to New York (again) and should be boarding the plane heading to Istanbul. All is clear so far.

Final Countdown

2010-05-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

Our bags are in the car and we await the 5:00 a.m. alarm to go. It looks like all is calm in Iceland. Thanks for all the support from all the people who have helped get us here. I will post pictures when we reach Istanbul. We are looking forward to seeing our friends at Delta.
-The Things-

Good Luck from Sherburne!

2010-05-26T10:19:00.001-07:00

The Sherburne County 4-H is wishing you good luck in your travels to Turkey. We hope you get there this time! We are excited for you all and so proud of where your robotics interest is taking you. Enjoy the adventure! Blog soon!
Kathy Held
Sherburne Co. 4-H PC

At First You Don't Suceed, Try, Try, Try Again

2010-05-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

Bags are packed (again), robot is ready (again), and the air looks clear of ash. We will be boarding the plane on Thursday morning and hoping to make it all the way to Istanbul this time. Keep your fingers crossed!

Plans Reset

2010-04-28T10:20:00.000-07:00

The tournament has officially been rescheduled (loud cheers and sighs of relief) for the first week of June. Flights and hotels have been rebooked. The people in the executive office of Delta were very helpful in getting our tickets rebooked at no additional cost. Now it is time to start getting things ready again (while keeping our fingers crossed that the ash stays away).

Travel Day - Excitement, Disappointment & Lemonade

2010-04-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

Saturday, April 17th was finally here- bags packed, robot made it safely through security, excited kids, parents and coaches. We boarded the plane heading to New York and then onto Istanbul. In Minneapolis, they let us board the plane because our flight was one of the few that was not cancelled to Europe. By the time we landed in New York, we got a message saying the tournament was postponed. We had just over an hour for our next flight so we had to do a lot of scrambling - talking to Delta, contacting the tournament people in Istanbul (where it was the middle of night), and coming up with a game plan. The kids did great handling the disappointment and held it together. We were very proud of them.

It was a LONG afternoon - hanging out in the airport for hours while being so disappointed. Eventually tickets home got rebooked. We waited with thousands of other travelers doing the same. There were no hotels within an hour of the airport. We did managed to see a little piece of NYC at nighttime for a couple of hours. I always wondered where Time Square and that ball were. Then it was back to the airport to track down luggage, switch airports, and try to catch a couple of winks (on the airport floor) before we boarded our flight back home. What an experience - traveling for 24 hours and ending up back at the Minneapolis airport.

We are hoping to hear a firm date soon about the tournament (possibly in June) and trying to keep our chins up. Learning to make lemonade when life throws you lemons - or in this case ashes.

Minnesota State Capitol

2010-04-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

Our day at the capitol started out with a rare opportunity - being on the senate floor. The senate was not in session so we were able to be on the floor. State senator Lisa Fobbe presented the team with a state resolution. The document basically congratulated the team on their accomplishment and was sealed and signed by senators Lisa Fobbe and Mike Jungbauer, Secretary of the Senate Peter Wattson, and Senate Chair Lawrence Pogemiller.

Next, we were off for a tour of the capitol. The tour ended at the Governor's reception room. Governor Tim Pawlenty met with us for a short time, offering his congratulations and finding out more about the program. He shared with us about his travels to Istanbul and said we would be amazed at the size and busyness of the city. Governor Pawlenty was the first to autograph our Cat in the Hat book that we will be bringing to the tournament as an autograph book. It was a great day and quite an honor.

Lots of "Fun"draising

2010-04-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

We have been working hard on fundraising, as well as getting in some practice with our robot. We have hit the streets and raised $18,000 of our $20,000 goal - going door to door, talking to local businesses, presenting at a few Lions Clubs, and more. Our new mantra is "the worst they can say is no." Last week, we bagged groceries at Cub and shared info about the Lego program. Lots of people stopped to check out our robot. We are now expert grocery baggers (hear the moms cheering?). It is almost time to start packing our bags.

The Things Host Tournament

2010-03-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

The Things hosted the Elk River Invitational Tournament this past weekend as part of our fundraising effort as well as promoting FLL to the community. Teams competed in a double elimination head to head competition. In addition to the tournament, we had a silent auction, sold flashing blinky lights, and served Turkey sandwiches for lunch. Eight teams competed and over 100 people from the community attended. All of the teams did awesome! The teams had a great time competing and watching some fun science experiments. The final match included Cavemen 2.0 and Hydrogen Peroxide. Both teams scored a perfect 400 and went onto a tiebreaker match, with Hydrogen Peroxide scoring another perfect 400.

Final Results -
Hydrogen Peroxide - 1st Place
Cavemen 2.0 - 2nd Place
NXT Generation - 3rd Place
Ducks with the HUD - 4th Place
Big Bad Super Bot Crushers - 5th Place

Participation trophies went to: Fish in the Boat, Steel Claws, and The Things.

We would like to send a big thank you to all of the great support we received - Norm Tiedman (head ref), Rand Willock (provided the awesome obstacle course with remote controlled robots), & the teams who came up and competed (Hydrogen Peroxide, Cavemen 2.0, NXT Generation, Fish in the Boat, Big Bad Super Bot Crushers, Ducks with a HUD, Dangerous Duct Tape Doodles, & Steel Claws). Also, we would like to thank Elk River School District #728 Community Education for sponsoring the event and Sherburne County 4H for helping us with promoting it. Several local businesses made donations for the silent auction. Thanks for helping us with our goal. We are looking forward to competing at the European Open in Istanbul, Turkey in April. We are over halfway to reaching our $20,000 goal needed to get us there, with a few fundraiser events left.

Not a bug, a novel Line Follower.

2010-02-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

A Second Story

Judges aren't perfect. From time to time, code that looks odd and troublesome is novel and interesting. Again, a team was confident enough to hand me a printout of their programs. At the time, I thought the code looked odd and asked a lot of questions and got great answers. The discussion moved to other things.

At lunch I pulled out the printout and retraced the program's wiring in an attempt to understand how it worked. I still had questions, so I tracked down the team and asked a few more questions. Here is a simplified version of their line following algorithm.

It's unique. It uses the Move block's steering instead of turning on/off the motors or changing the power levels of the motors.

The actual code also watched for a black crossroad and included a correction for the two light sensors reading different values for white. Those additions complicated the code and confused this judge. As teams get better at programming and present more ideas, it gets harder and harder to separate troublesome from interesting.

Sometimes Judges aren't Judging

2010-02-06T20:24:00.000-08:00

by Doug Frevert

Last Saturday, FLL competitors gathered at Mahtomedi High School for the Minnesota State Finals. Of the seventy teams teams there, I saw sixteen. Only two dared to give me printouts of their programs. Of the four stories worth telling, two are based on those printouts.

One Story

Teams often dread their time in front of the judges. One of the worst things that can happen is having a judge find a bug in the code. Usually, bugs are too subtle to find in the ten minutes available. Here's your chance: put on your thinking cap, grab a sharp pencil and write down the questions you'd ask a team that told you this code allowed a robot to back up and square itself to a wall.

1. "Does it work?" "Yes. It works great!"
2. "Do you use the same code, anywhere else?" "Yes."

I didn't find the bug while the team was in the room. Instead, I told them, "There's something wrong, but I'm not sure what it is and if it works for your robot, then it works." At lunch, I pulled out the printout they'd given me and there it was. A small corner of their printout included the troublesome code.

It wasn't until just before the head to head competitions started that I got a chance to go looking for the team. It's fun walking around the pits in a judge's red shirt at that time of day. But no, I'm wasn't in judging mode, I was in problem solving mode. Finding the team was surprisingly easy, explaining the bug surprisingly hard. Their coach suggested testing it. And of course that's when the team really showed it's stuff. They recoded the section above and downloaded it into their robot, found a wall, and ran some tests.

I sure enjoyed it: the moment of shared discovery. It worked the way they used it, yet hiding inside was a bug waiting to bite.

Innovative Design Winner at Sanford

2009-12-13T10:05:00.000-08:00

by Doug Frevert

At the Minneapolis FLL Regional held at Sanford Middle School, the Innovative Design award was given for a tiny bit of code. Many FLL teams used line following algorithms on the Smart Moves course. Still, those attending the awards ceremony must have wondered what, "for an elegantly, simple and effective line following algorithm" meant. Why did they win an award?

Without giving too much away, here is the most important bit:

Disappointed? It sure doesn't look like much. The actual line following algorithm is hiding in a MyBlock. Why is this the most important part? Because their code also included bits like this:

That might make the reason even more puzzling, however, it suggests a pattern they found and used. Finding and using patterns needs to be celebrated.

There remains one additional reason. After judging about 30 teams and reviewing many algorithms, the prevalence of excess code became apparent. This approach avoided that problem.

Buggy Code or Bad Touch Sensor?

2009-11-26T20:07:00.000-08:00

by Doug Frevert

The previous blog entry hinted that there was a bug in one of the code samples. Actually, either can work, but both often fail. Huh? Let's take another look.

This code has a bug in it. With the proper settings, the bug almost disappears. There are two sensors involved, the rotation sensor in a move block and the touch sensor in the loop. If the move block is waiting for 360 degrees of rotation and a wall blocks the progress of the robot and the wheels stop rotating, the robot will freeze. It's possible to get this code to work by changing the settings to wait for 2 degrees of rotation. There's enough play in the motor to keep the robot from stalling.

Still, that is unsatisfying. Consider this alternative:

The move block no longer uses the rotation sensor. It goes forever. A move block to stop the motors was added. So this is better.

Now, consider this alternative:

The first move block popped out of the loop and is now in front of the loop. That makes sense; there's no need to start the motors again and again, once is enough. After the touch sensor is pressed, the loop finishes and the move block that follows stops the motors. Note that only one sensor is involved: the touch sensor.

Of course, there's a simpler way to expressing this in NXT-G. Consider this:

A WaitFor command has replaced the Loop command. The WaitFor commands are a bit tricky to find in the NXT-G menus. Look for the hour glass. This is functionally equivalent to the previous example.

You may also recognize this as the second choice from the previous blog entry. It's almost the same. The final move block to stop the motors has been added. And that is the bug I saw last weekend, waiting for a sensor and forgetting to change the motors after.

A WaitFor command for several sensors
To complete the thought, here is sample code to move forward until any one of three sensors are triggered (one touch and two light):

The Loop command is running in logic mode. One Sensor command for each sensor and a couple of Or commands. The loop keeps testing the sensors until any one of them triggers.

This example is in FLL Programming 101 with NXT-G, page 86.

Another Bug
Many teams are proud of their code. A few leave the judges printed copies of their work. Given enough time, judges can often find bugs waiting to pop up and make a robot go crazy. Here is an example. Remember, the robot works well enough that the team has not stopped everything to fix this bug.

Can you find the Bug?

Hint: How many sensors are being used? How many are required?

Note: The comments in the original code were removed. I probably won't publish a fix for the bug until after the State competition. Adults shouldn't fix bugs for FLL teams. Think of this as more like a game of "Where's Waldo?", only in NXT-G.

One last comment, if you think your robot is acting crazy, it might be a bug in your programs.

Touch Sensors don't Work.

2009-11-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

by Doug Frevert

During this year's regional FLL competition, more than one team claimed that the touch sensors don't work. It's too late for them, but you can avoid their mistakes.

Consider two ways of programming a robot to go forward until a bumper is touched.

This version starts the motors to run forever and then waits for the bumper to be hit.

This version rotates the wheels once and then checks whether the bumper has been touched; if not it repeats.

Which version is better?

Clearly, one version has problems, but don't be fooled. Which one is better?

More on Friday.

Why didn't we win the Programming Award? The Reaction.

2009-08-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

“Why we didn't win the FLL Programming Award” was written the week after the 2008 regionals for the old hightechkids website. Buried on the Mindstorms NXT blog page, it took a couple of weeks to be noticed. This summarizes the email discussion that transpired, all of it before the State competition in January 2009.

The Judges React

The reaction emails started with this one.

Doug,

As a judge and a coach I need to take exception with some of what you posted in your blog entry on “Why we didn't win the Programming award.”

I would recommend that you not assign scores to teams until you have seen at least four teams. Even if those teams knock your socks off, you need to leave head room for a potentially better team. Schedule order should not in any way affect a team’s relative ranking. Even if the best team goes first and they score in the low 90s vs. the high 90s, it gets factored out with normalization.

Your segments on Refactoring in this blog entry and the one after also concern me. I understand what you are trying to tell the kids, but some of your examples lack the depth of detail needed to make the point. How many switch statements does it take to be a cascade? Long sequences are somewhat expected for long, complicated missions. This needs to be considered. You have also advocated perfection of their code with the complete elimination of code duplication. They need to learn when to say the code is “good enough”. Code can always be made better. In the real world, an engineer would get blasted for expending that amount of effort, on code that’s good enough!

Scott

Scott,

First, thanks for reading the blog. You're the first to see it that I know of.

Waiting to score until I've seen four teams, I find less than helpful. I left myself 5 points, which in previous tournaments has been enough room. Waiting even until lunch would have helped only a little, some of the best teams came after lunch.

The point is, that I said I'd seen a great team and I had. I had no way of communicating how close to the top they came. They should have felt great about their performance, instead they felt bewildered.

As to the refactoring, I introduced one form of refactoring: removing duplication. There are many other forms. If that is your objection, you're right. I have seen several teams that are ready to use refactoring. I'm hoping at least one will present a solution that jumps to what I see as a next level. A pattern that collects the elements of a task, so that, adding/deleting/editing a task is easier.

How many switch statements? -- Not sure that has an answer. Too many is bad, but again, how many is too many?

Long sequences are expected. -- I am pretty sure that that is a problem. Even breaking a long sequence into going out and coming back is an improvement. It makes it so much easier to test the pieces.

Perfection? Unfortunately, to win programming requires much more than “good enough”. For instance, the LCD panel is difficult to see in actual competition. Yet, almost every team programs it extensively. Clearly, this is well beyond “good enough”. Should judges disregard those programs as frivolous? No, but they should not carry too much weight.

At least this year, winning robots need to do more than go forward and back.

Doug

Doug,

You might be surprised. Teams like ours are voracious at both gathering ideas and intell. While you were busy judging teams in the early afternoon, they were busily scouting their competition and trying learn all they could from them. They’re not alone. Read the FLL forum pages and you’ll see how many teams there are out there that are scouring the internet for any edge they can get. I’d guess your blog has been read by a lot of them. Our web master could probably give you a hit count if you are interested.

I think you are a fine judge. Our team has had you as a judge at least twice and I think three times. I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback from the kids after their judging sessions. But you are right in that we should all strive to improve, me included.

In case you have not deduced this by now, our team was also at the tournament. We placed fifth in programming. The level of code and knowledge our team went in with is typically enough to win the award. We were amazed that there were 5 teams at one regional tournament with that caliber of code and knowledge. I would expect that they will all be among the top 10 at state. They may be the top 5! It was a great wakeup call for our team.

I don’t know where your 5 point head room was apportioned across the 5 sub categories, but I’m guessing you score heavily based on the technical merits of the code. The sub category on Strategy, Process, Problem Solving has a strong emphasis on the engineering process and how did the team arrive at the code they are presenting. This is a very hard area to judge in 10 minutes, but it should carry as much weight as their knowledge of elegant code and refactoring. The last section on Overall Design, should really include the concepts of Systems Engineering. What were their trade-offs of hardware vs. software? What drove their design, the hardware or the software? Was it the same kids doing both halves or two different segments of the team? (Not that I’m advocating MN combine the Programming and Design sections, but I feel we may have overly decoupled them.)

Top teams tend to nail the middle three because they are well defined. Teams can often skate by the top and bottom sub-sections based on their dominance in the language and sensor sections. We can easily be dazzled by some cool code. Digging into the process is where these top teams should really be tested.

Your knowledge of both RoboLab and NXT-G is extraordinary! I’ve been judging for four years now and have yet to learn anything new from any of the teams I’ve judged. I thought my knowledge of these two languages was fairly good. I read through your examples on refactoring in RoboLab and was amazed. We never had memory problems, so we never really explored local subroutines. We focused on SubVis extensively. The examples where you used a SubVi to store a repeated number never occurred to us. Our code was not heavily dependent on containers as we didn’t use the local subroutines. Amazement aside, I still think that spending as much time on refactoring that code to that level is overkill. Code that has a high future probability of reuse may warrant this level of attention. Code that’s clearly in the one-off category is “good enough” when it works. All teams will have code in both categories. Identifying which category each code segment is in should be just as important as their ability to refactor their code. Demonstrating this restraint on one-off code segments should be equally rewarded. It’s the time vs. value trade off they need to understand and demonstrate. Programming the LCD has little merit if they are doing it to showcase their skills. It has a lot of merit the teams use it as a reminder tool for team members that don’t get to spend a lot of time with the robot before competition. They need to be able to defend their position. The screen isn’t that hard to see unless they bury it in their robot. Most teams see it well enough to work through 4 or 5 button pushes to run the next program. They aren’t complaining about seeing the screen. They complain about the time it takes.

Telling a team that’s some of the best code you’ve seen is great. Telling them that you would expect them to win the award when they are the first team up is going too far.

The one great thing about little discussion, is the exchange of judging ideas and philosophies. There’s nothing near this anywhere out on the web. I’ve looked. As a first time judge, I would have killed for half the insight we have shared in a couple emails and a couple blog entries.

So, here’s a challenge for Norm. How can we get something going, that will pass along knowledge of judges like Doug and I? A Yahoo group could be good for the MN judging community, but I think something that’s accessible to more judges outside MN would be even better.

Scott

Norm is the Head Judge in Minnesota and he joined the discussion.

Scott, Doug;

Yes, the dissemination of good information (and the suppression of mundane or unhelpful information) is a tough task. It is one that we struggle with even with simple things like schedules and team information.

There is a set of Blogs on the FLL website, which are (somewhat) designed for this information. The 3 blogs are listed at the end of this email. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that these are not read by the people that they would help the most. Probably the HTK blog is read by as many people as read the FLL ones, since our web site is used as reference by many others. I really don't know the answer but will accept Scott's challenge to think about how to spread this information without overwhelming.

Norm

PS: I included Skip on the cc list. He is the global head official.

FIRST LEGO LEAGUE BLOGS:

The Community Blog is your resource for all online communication between FLL/Jr.FLL and the community. You will find a wealth of information about new site developments, frequently asked questions about both programs, and secrets from inside the FIRST organization. We hope that you will find the content here informational and insightful, and that you will comment whenever you have got something to say. Our goal is to make your online and offline experience of the programs equally rewarding. We need your help to make that happen and this blog is a method for that communication.

The FLLGame Question & Answer (Q&A) Blog is the official FLL question and answer area resource for your Game-specific inquiries. Look here first for the clarifications, updates, and rulings you will need to be prepared at tournaments. Make sure to use the Categories, Tags, and/or Search features to help narrow your search.

The FLL Global Judge Advisor Blog is the place for conversations about FLL judging. Discussion topics include awards, rubrics, procedures, training and tools. Teams, coaches, volunteers and partners can use this blog to find information, ask questions, and have meaningful conversations around FLL judging.

The email discussion continued, for the most part, dissecting the presentation of this material.

Scott gets the last word.

For lower caliber teams, the responsibility for information transfer from the team to the judge lies mostly with the judge. The judge would be expected to pull the needed information out of the kids. There's not that much to cover.

As the caliber of the team goes up the responsibility shifts more to the kids. There becomes too much code, process, and strategy to look at and expect to cover it all in 10 minutes. The kids need to control most of the conversation and _ensure_, the judge understands what sets them apart from the masses.

Scott

Our Final Post

2009-06-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning after breakfast we headed over to the OMNI Hotel for the awards ceremony in the Grand ballroom. We got the First Place Programming award, and were very happy about that!

Here's a picture of us with our award:

After the awards ceremony we went back over to the hotel to hang around before the Closing Ceremoney at Centennial Park that evening.

The Closing Ceremony was a LOT of fun!! We finished eating quickly so that we could start on the rides. There were rock climbing walls, huge inflatable slides, carnival games, inflatable obstacle courses, lasertag and a whole lot of other fun games.

The evening ended in an awesome fireworks show.

The next day we packed up our stuff and got ready to go. It was really hard to leave, but we hope to make it back again!

Final Results

2009-04-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

On Friday afternoon, after our very exciting perfect last run, the team
went to the Atlanta Underground for dinner. Then
went to the aquarium. People had told us it was good and it
they were right.

Saturday morning, breakfast at the CNN food court. Then
over to the OMNI Hotel for Awards Cermony.

This is a picture in the Grand Ballroom in the OMNI Hotel

where the awards cermony was held. These are the two teams

from Minnesota, the Techo Travelors won 1st place in programming

and we won 3rd place in Quality Design. We were nominated

in Programming, Creative Presentation and Quality Design.

After the awards Cermony, we went to the dome to watch the FRC

robots compete and have lunch. We then headed over to Coke

World to try the Beverly (serious bitter, sour aftertaste) soft

drink from Italy, among many of the 60 options in the tasting

room. Everyone left there more awake then when we arrived.

Then back to the hotel for some swimming. Followed

by the Finale party back at Centennial Olympic park.

There was food and many games including rock climbing.

The party ended with Fireworks.

Finally....

2009-04-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

We almost got our 400, only 375 because the window fell shut on the house. That was our best of the day, then we got 240 and then a poor 145. We were sad because our 145 run was Kelten's last run, as he will be graduating out of FLL at the end of the season. We met Woodie Flowers, and got a picture with him before our second board run.
We got a callback in programming, we think it went well.

Tonight we went to dinner at the CNN building, then went to the aquarium. The aquarium was really cool! After the aquarium we came back to the hotel to play cards, post to this blog, and stay up late.

Busy....

2009-04-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

So, our second day. Many terms could explain our day, but it could be summed up in one word...

BUSY.

We were thrown into a new method of judging, the judges were great and we enjoyed the teamwork activity the most. The directions for the activity were to create a working laptop using all of our team members. We met Steve Hassenplug and Scott Evans. During the practice rounds our robot didn't behave. In the evening we enjoyed eatting ice cream and playing soccer with a team from Haiti.

We also enjoyed listening to Dean Kamen during the FLL opening.

Hurry up and wait

2009-04-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the big screen showing the
team is ready to run for the last time and the
clock is set to the 2 1/2 minutes.

Here is Kobi, Jay, Graham and Jacob waiting
for their turn with the Georgia dome roof
in the background.

Here is the team waiting back stage on one of

their three runs.

Watch out for rogue robots

2009-04-17T15:44:00.001-07:00

You never knew what was going to be rolling by.

Second Programming review

2009-04-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

The team is explaining the programs to a roaming judge

in our pit area. This is the second time in 2 days, that

they have had the judges review their code.

Thanks goes out to our fans

2009-04-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

Our team would like to thank the parents of the team

for their continued support.

Day 2 - Performance Runs

2009-04-17T14:39:00.001-07:00

Here is our robot at rest (well deserved) after the final run of 345 points.
That placed the team in 13th place overall in robot performance out of the 84 teams participating at the World Festival.

1st Run 325
2nd Run 250 (about 1/2 inch away from perfection)
3rd Run 345

Awesome, is all I can say. The creator and designer of
the FLL mat and missions, Scott Evans, watched our
team's last run, with a smile on his face the whole time,
in which every mission we tried worked perfectly.

He was very impressed Graham and Andrew,
how they were so cool underpresure even after all the time
delays. He commented that he has seen a lot of runs
but he was not going to forget our teams for a long
time. Then, he also showed his rubik's cube skills in
solving it in 30 seconds. Thanks Scott, for the memories,
your time and the challenges.

Here is the team after their perfect last and finally run of

the season with the South African Team that they were running on

the same table with. That team will be traveling to Orlando

(Disney) and Miami before heading back home. They will

probably be sing and cheering the whole time. The words

'polar opposites' does come to mind.

Out to Centennial Olympic Park for some fun

2009-04-16T18:34:00.001-07:00

Here is Jay showing his excitement for this volunteer's bold clothing choice.

Dean Kamen came and gave an inspirational speech to the teams.

Here is Graham enjoying some ice cream with our tall 73 floor round Westin hotel in the background.

Here is the team cooling off by the computer controlled fountain.

Hydrogen Peroxide in the Shoreview Bulletin

2009-04-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to a story about the team that came out in the Shoreview Bulletin newspaper today.

http://www.bulletin-news.com/main.asp?SectionID=60&SubSectionID=128&ArticleID=4488

Day 1 at World Festival

2009-04-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

We started the first day at the World Festival early.

After we ran our two practice robot runs we were
rate about 13th with our best run of 296. Tomorrow
we throw those runs out and do 3 more that count.

We had our presentation, technical and team work
judging this afternoon. In the team work judging,
that had to do an activity. Their team work activity
was that the whole team together had to show how
to be a television. They had 5 minutes to talk it over
and then do it.

After all the judging, everyone was hungry. We ordered
up some pizza.

First Day in Atlanta

2009-04-16T09:23:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of the team in their hotel room on the 27th floor.
It was a very busy day of air travel and MARTA. He all made it.

The first 2 practice rounds are done and they went pretty well.

All the judging is coming up this afternoon.

Wish us Luck.

Team in Pioneer Press Wednesday Paper

2009-04-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Pioneer Press ran this story the day we left Minnesota.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_12143361?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com

FIRST day in Atlanta

2009-04-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

We had a really busy first day. We started the day by heading to Centennial Park, playing in the Olympic Rings fountain (and got really wet!), and then playing soccer with a team from Illinois. After that, we came back to our hotel rooms and got ready to set up our pit. Our coach kissed a plastic LEGO man sitting on a bench (see picture for proof!).

It was really cool meeting the teams from other countries. We really enjoyed talking to the teams from France and South Africa. We ended our first full day with an awesome diner at Ted's Montana Grill. While sitting in the restaurant we noticed many of our pale Minnesota faces were extremely red (sun burnt!). We retired to the hotel to practice our judged areas: technical, research presentation, and programming. We are confident that we will do well during our second day in Atlanta.

The Techno Travelers

Getting ready to go...

2009-04-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

Good news, we met our fund raising goal of $8000, just in time for us to leave next week!
A big thanks to all of our sponsors:

Our team with sponsors at our business tournament

The Natalie Tiedemann Scholarship fund
MICO, Inc
Bolten & Menk, Inc
Paulson Architects
Schwickerts
EI Microcircuits
Family & friends who donated
The families who "hired" us for birthday parties
Lion's club
Kiwanis club

Thanks to all who donated!

We are looking forward to being together without a webcam and computer screen between us in Atlanta!

Hydrogen Peroxide heading to World Festival

2009-04-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

Team Hydrogen Peroxide was nominated by Minnesota for Core Values. We are proud to say that our Core Values essay was accepted so, we will be also attending the World Festival along with the Techno Travelers. We only found out a few weeks ago, so we are busy making plans. The team just got done demoing their robot at the FRC regional tournament last weekend at Williams Arena. We had a great time talking with future FLL kids and their coaches. We are looking forward to having more time to watch the FRC along with the FLL teams in action in Atlanta.

Preparing for the World Festival

2009-03-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

We are working hard to be ready for the World Festival in Atlanta in a few weeks. We've mostly been tweaking programs and missions, with a few exceptions, namely our House arm.

A few weeks ago, we were interviewed by Jason Davis of KSTP, about what we do in FLL and about our team. See the interview at http://kstp.com/article/stories/s847759.shtml?cat=1

And as he said at the end of the video, it's time for us to go conquer the Lego World!

By: The Techno Travelers

HTK Open a success!

2008-05-09T11:37:00.000-07:00

We had great teams, great volunteers, great officials.. I'll come out with a summary of how it went, mostly in terms of feedback later. But overall, this event went very well. The teams were all great, and the Alliance was a big hit. It's pretty clear rules are interpreted differently in different places, but all the teams handled it graciously as we tried to get everyone on the same rules for the table. Congratulations to all the teams and our friends from Germany who won the Champion's Award. I have never heard so many compliments for a team from competing coaches. And our teams from Latin America showed so much spirit and joy, it was really infectious!

But this is not possible without all the great folks working for HTK. They all deserve a HUGE thanks from you the next time you see them..

By: Fred Rose

Here we go..

2008-04-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

A lot of people have put in a ton of time to get this going. Too many people to name, too many hours to count. We have 63 teams coming, from 10 countries.. Awesome! Make sure you come to the University of MN to watch!

By Fred Rose

Last Day of the World Festival!

2008-04-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

Since on the last day of the World Festival there were no robot runs, or project judging, just a party at the end of the day for all those who participated in FIRST, we got to sleep in! After getting up, most of us somewhat refreshed, we ate a late breakfast at Ted’s Montana Grill and headed towards the Georgia Aquarium. The aquarium was very interesting and we saw many crazy looking aquatic critters. After the aquarium we went back to the hotel and got most of our stuff packed. When packing was done we walked to Centennial Olympic Park where the party was being held. At the party we raced through obstacle courses, won prizes, and rode on rides. To top it all off, they had an amazing fireworks display at the end.

By Pixelation

Robot Runs and Awards Ceremony

2008-04-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

After breakfast we headed to our pit area at the Georgia World Congress Center and got ready for our first robot run at 11:00. the run went very well, we scored a perfect 400!!! At 11:40 we had our teamwork call back, where they asked us a bunch of teamwork questions. After our teamwork call back we had our second robot run at 12:20. We scored a 350 on this run, and after the run the ref was questioning the way in which we placed the solar panel on the house (vertically). The ref called over the head ref who, in short, told us we needed to redesign our attachment. So, we headed back to the pit to rebuild our attachment before the next run. We didn't have too much trouble rebuilding our attachment and didn't even have reprogram anything! On our last run of the tournament we got there a bit early and chatted with the team from Peru. The new attachment was successful, however, we had a small mechanical failure but managed to score a 385. A few hours later, they held the awards ceremony. We think it went pretty well, the team that came in first was the team from Singapore, External Fusion. The second place team, drum roll please, was PIXELATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In third place was the team from Michigan, the Power Peeps. We are very happy in placing second in the world. We would also like to congratulate the first and third place teams, all the other award winning teams, and every team that participated in the World Festival!

By Team Pixelation

Day 2: "Judgement Day"

2008-04-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

Today, we created a poem about our experiences in Atlanta today. Enjoy!

We woke up this morning, it was judgement day,

and we walked across the street to the local cafe.

We got off our seats and started to roam,

right down the street to the Georgia Dome.

At ten we had our practice run,

Lukas and Abe ran it, it was kind of fun!

Then Adam and Nel ran the second one,

lets just say they were glad when they were done.

Practice runs through, we had judging to do,

three stations successively, starting at two.

First project, then technical, then teamwork at last;

all went very well, but we are glad they are past.

Two hours later, we went to Centennial Park,

to eat free ice cream, before it got dark.

We watched different teams from all over the globe,

perform varied dances, some in funny robes.

All performances done, someone held up a sheet,

this remarkable paper, said something neat.

The paper showed us something we feared we would lack,

it was, in fact, a teamwork callback.

After the ice cream (some appetites shot),

we ate mexican food, some of it hot!

Looking back, the day was OK!

And we're looking forward to another day!

Registration and Setup Day

2008-04-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

1st Day in Atlanta: We walked down to the Georgia World Congress Center (where most of the tournament will be held) to register our team and setup our pit area.

To get to the Georgia World Congress Center, we pushed our heavy but durable wooden cart down the streets of Atlanta. This route was made slightly longer by constructrion on buildings damaged by the tornado last month. Once at the World Congress Center, we met many teams from the US and around the world. At all the pit areas, FIRST left everyone very cool rubber wrist bands with 512mb flash drives embedded in them. Many people came up to our pit eagerly to exchange pencils, buttons, stickers, pins, candy, and bookmarks, for our High Tech Kids frisbees.

By Team

Traveling to Atlanta

2008-04-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Our plane left at 5:14 PM Tuesday. Besides eating candy and watching movies, the flight was uneventful, and we were glad to finally touch down in Atlanta Georgia at 8:15 PM Atlanta time! We then grabbed our baggage and took the MARTA to our hotel, the Hyatt. We were glad to see that all our robot parts and presentation parts had arrived safely.

By Team

FLL World Festival 08

2008-04-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

Please join us for Team Pixelation's trip to the 2008 FLL World Festival in Atlanta! We're thrilled to be representing Minnesota at this event, and will do what we can over the next few days to share a little of our experiences with you.

YIKES! It's Tournament Time...already!

2007-11-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

Every year I am amazed at how fast tournament time comes. One year I even tried to talk my team into registering for a later tournament…way back when there were less teams and Deb gave us choices. My team would have none of that. After all, Sandburg was their school, the tournament they always competed in, and to them it was “tradition”. Even with this "tradition", every year we wished for just two more weeks, just two more weeks. Knowing that if WE got two more weeks, so did our competition and that in the long run it didn’t make a difference.

Here are my “Two weeks before the Tournament” Tips:

• READ ALL E-MAILS FROM YOUR TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR. He or she is really a nice person, not a nag trying to get you to do extra stuff. I’ve met all of them, and they just want you to have a great day. Many of the TD’s are also coaches with teams competing that day. Let me tell you that it’s not easy juggling both hats, especially when your team’s robot starts to malfunction and they need to re-program most of the missions (but that’s a story you can read about from last year’s blog). Make sure that you have an adult or two willing to volunteer on Tournament Day.

• COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR PARENTS. Let your parents know when and where they need to deliver their children. Make sure they know your team number, division and name. Give them a schedule and let them know when all the judging and performance rounds are happening. Have them invite relatives and friends – it’s a really cool program, AND fun to watch! Remember to have your parents sign the FLL Release. You will need to have one for each child when you register on Tournament Day.

• PRACTICE SCHEDULE. Many teams start meeting more often in the weeks leading up to the tournament. My advice would be to make sure the kids aren’t getting burned out. If they start getting antsy, take a 10 minute break. The most stressful time for my team was always the week before the tournament.

• TIME TRIALS. Use a kitchen timer and practice what your robot and team can do in 2 ½ minutes. This is also a good way to pair kids up for the Performance rounds. I always let every kid, who wanted to, run the robot in competition. However, by doing time trials at practice I could see who worked best together as pairs.

• RESEARCH PRESENTATION. Many teams think it’s just about he robot, but 25% of your score comes from your research presentation. For whatever reason, my team always liked the presentation end…maybe not the actual research, but they liked to perform and they liked coming up with innovative ideas. Practice your presentation in front of other people – parents, friends, neighbors, anyone. Then have your audience ask questions. It’s great practice for the kids, and it will get them thinking about how to formulate their answers.

• TECHNICAL JUDGING. Remind the kids of all those great ideas/tools they had in the beginning of the season that didn't work. Also, know that in technical judging, they will eventually split up the kids. One group will talk about building and the other will explain the programming. It’s a good idea to figure that out before hand. Don't forget that you will have to show judges your progams, either on a laptop or printed out.

• THE NIGHT BEFORE. A last minute practice? Maybe. Tell your team how terrific they are? Definitely. You will receive, from your friendly neighborhood Tournament Director, a list of things to bring to the tournament. Pack it all up the night before. You don’t want to be running around your house at 6:00 in the morning looking for those extra batteries. Don’t forget to have a container for your robot (like a tool box) to protect it. Make sure that you have a signed Release for EACH member of your team along with a Team Registration Form. You will need these documents when you go to the Registration Table on Tournament Day. GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP! It's a long, mentally and phsyically exhausting day. Don't forget to pack yourself some ibuprofen.

• TOURNAMENT DAY. Take a deep breadth; drink coffee, tea, whatever makes you relax. If you are calm, your team is calm. When you get to your tournament site check in at the registration table. They will have all the information you need to have a great day. Don’t forget to remind your parent volunteer when and where they need to be during the day. Take everything to your pit site. Tell your kids, again, how much fun they are about to have, how great they are and to relax. I always found it helpful to tape the schedule to the wall behind our pit table. That way even parents/grandparents/friends knew when we were competing.

• REMEMBER. Everything you have been doing is for the kids. Even if your day is wrought with robotic malfunctions and kids freezing up in front of judges, you all accomplished something by just competing. Although it’s a competition, primarily it’s supposed to be fun…so make sure to

RELAX AND HAVE FUN!

By Vicki Coaty

Frequently Encountered Situations, II

2007-10-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

Max gets overstimulated by the excitement of building and creating and being around so much activity. Help him find ways to protect himself from outside forces: Is there a quiet place or even another room in which he could work? Other ideas include reminding him to take routine breaks, giving him a set of headphones or ear plugs for the noise, talking to him about other ways he deals with stimulus, and talking with his parents.

All my team wants to do is play. They throw LEGO pieces, act goofy and avoid the work that needs to be completed. Ask yourself whether all the team members participated in determining goals for the team and rules about behavior. Make sure that these discussions have occurred and implement what the team agreed to do. It is possible that your expectations are too high. Do you wish they would be serious during the entire practice session? How often are they really disruptive and nonproductive? Cut them a little slack, but help them focus on the immediate goals for the practice session. Suggest easy tasks that are likely to be successful so everyone learns how to be productive.

All seven kids want to operate the robot at the tournament. Suggest the team members take turns. Perhaps all seven team members can operate the robot at the tournament. There will be at least four opportunities to run the robot on the day of the tournament. Two kids from each team will operate it during any one run. Potentially, everyone could have a turn. This means that there are likely to be different jobs for each of the two kids running the robot. (One lines it up and starts the programs while the other retrieves the robot and gets attachments ready.) This approach will only work if everyone who runs the robot has enough practice before the scheduled run. Sometimes a child changes his or her mind about running the robot after seeing the pressure operators are under. The key to success here is PRACTICE!

Nobody wants to work on the presentation. This is a hard one. The attraction of the FLL program is building and programming robots. At the same time, an important part of the program is scientific research and presentation. The team will need to understand that the work needs to get done. It is probably best to share the work. Having a set of goals, and being able to check them off as they are accomplished, will help kids share the load! Everyone on the team should be capable of understanding the issues and contributing to the presentation. Perhaps a few team members would agree to provide leadership on the presentation, especially if others offer to help keep them involved in the building and programming process. The more you make the presentation part of each practice, the more the entire team will understand and participate.

Beth is a skilled LEGO builder and she is constantly reminding other team members about her prowess by offering unwanted suggestions for changes. Take Beth aside and talk to her privately about the effects of unsolicited advice. Affirm for her that it can be hard to wait for someone to figure out something for him or herself, but that she needs to find a way to support the other builders without intrusive suggestions. Make a plan for what she can do and help her get started with it. Praise her when you see her holding back on suggestions and gently remind her of the plan if she slips up. Again, try to do this privately.

We have three robots and one computer. Kids are really frustrated waiting for a turn programming. One approach to this situation is to try to reduce the number of competing designs to one or two, not three. Different designs could be evaluated using built-in programs. Another way to evaluate designs is to build “brassboard” models that only do one element of a problem. For example, the challenge may require lifting an object. The team could build multiple lifting arms and run them at the object using simple carts. It should be possible to see which design is most likely to lift the target, as opposed to knocking it down. Finally, teach the kids to program in small modules—go straight, left turn, right turn, go to the wall, etc. If they have these, they can link them together into larger programs MUCH more efficiently than working on long program chains on instruction at a time! If necessary, you can also set a timer by the computer and give programmers five to ten minute turns. It's easy for them to save their work if not finished or write part of the program and test it.

By Fred Rose

High School Robotics...a whole different animal

2007-10-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

I went to my first FLL Tournament 8 years ago as a spectator with my, then, third grade son, Christopher. It was the second year of FLL in Minnesota, and the theme was Volcanic Panic. I had no idea what was in store for me when he joined a team the next year and tackled Arctic Impact.

Eight years and eight themes later, the 2007-2008 Power Puzzle season is in full swing. That third grader is now a 10th grader and has graduated into the new world of High School Robotics.
Even though this will be my fifth year as a coach, I feel like a fish out of water. HSR is a whole different animal, with different rules and strategies. I've already sent Q&A's to Fred and I'm sure I'll have more.

HSR is based off of FLL. It was started as a continuation of FLL for kids who wanted to keep building Lego robots, but got too old. Fred takes the FLL challenge, changes it and makes it harder.

What is interesting for me is the make up of our team. I have three 10th graders who have been on the same team since they were in 5th grade, plus three other kids. One of the boys we added was a competitor of ours for years. He is a year older than the rest of my team and participated in HSR last year. We have another 10th grader who hasn't done FLL since 5th grade, and another who has never participated.

However, the most surprising thing about my team is that for the first time in 5 years we have more boys than girls. It brings a whole new dynamic to the team that is fun to watch.
For instance, picking a name always took forever. These kids picked a name in about 10 minutes...Wreakin' Havoc (and that's what my basement looks like!)
However, building and designing a robot never took very long. We've built quite a few robots already (at least 5 or 6), but don't have a winner just yet. Our robot dilemma is philosophical – the kids all have different styles and reasons why they build a particular way. This dilemma, however, should prove to be quite interesting. I can't wait to see what our robot ends up looking like!

The HSR tournament is February 9th. I am so used to coaching a team to be ready before Thanksgiving, that it seems like we are slacking off. I don’t like the fact that we have so much time...it is TOO much time.

I suppose that HSR is just like FLL...80% of the work gets done in the last week and a half!

By Vicki Coaty

Frequently Encountered Situations, I

2007-10-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

We have one kit and six team members, all of whom want to build the robot. One kit per three kids is ideal, but expensive. You can buy an additional RCX brick for half the cost of a new kit, but this is still expensive. Take the time to talk about all the different jobs that need to be completed, as well as the different roles for team members. You'll also need to develop a plan for sharing robot construction, such as having some kids build components and others build the main structure. Make sure everyone who wants to build gets a chance to build.

Parents come to watch and start offering suggestions for how to build the robot. Take them aside and tell them that the team needs to make decisions about the project. Explain your role as coach and the balancing act between teaching basic skills and giving answers. If they understand and appreciate the situation, ask them to help.

One of our team members has a kit at home and wants to build a robot and bring it to practice. Does he want to let the team use and modify it? Will he allow his parts to be mixed with the team's kits? Are his parents involved in the discussion? If these and other questions are resolved, go for it. You will still need to discuss the decision to allow one member to build a robot at home. Some members of the team might feel cheated while others will be reluctant to give control to another team member. These might be minefields, so try to anticipate problems and proceed cautiously.

Jim is always sneaking up behind Tony when he is at the computer, tapping him on the shoulder and then pretending it wasn't he. He may also be engaging in other attention seeking behaviors. Tell him to stop it. If he persists, take him away from the group and explain how disruptive and disrespectful the behavior is. Try to figure out whether Jim wishes Tony would pay more attention to him. Watch to see if Jim annoys other team members as well. Help Jim find a meaningful task to work on, perhaps with another child. He probably needs to feel connected to other kids but doesn't have the requisite social skills. Watch him and try to help him figure out how to get what he needs.

Sandra really wanted to be on the team but she misses practice and is often late. Make time for her to explain her absences and reaffirm her commitment to the team or quit. Have this discussion sooner rather than later. Also, be sure to talk with her parents about the problem. Replace her if the team chooses to or carry on.

By Fred Rose

Welcome to coaching!

2007-10-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

Over the years when I have pitched FLL to various executive types, I always tell them that if they really want to train people for management, forget the fancy MBA degree, just have them coach a kids team. Coaching an FLL team requires every bit as much skill and guile as coaching (err, I mean managing) a team of adults. It's amazingly similar.

The first thing with the kids is to remember that they are kids. They have different expectations and internal calendars than you do. To them, a tournament in December may as well be in another century while to you, it may seem like tomorrow. The most common failure of teams is not failure to build a robot but failure to get along and have the same expectations.

We have a great coaching document on-line that covers many of these Frequently Encountered Situations.This document is under our Downloads page, and is called Coaching Problem Solving Teams. It was written by the great folks at Leonardo's Basement.

The coaching manual you get from FIRST as part of your registration is also quite good.

Don't get overwhelmed and feel you need to read all this. Spend time with your team, get to know them, work on basic things first.

And remember, if you are not enjoying it and having fun, chances are your kids aren't either. So address those things first..

By Fred Rose

Coaching Diary 2006/7

2007-04-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

Three coaches and one team will share an online diary, highlighting the ups and downs that all teams experience. Hopefully this will help you with your own teams. While all three coaches are experienced, their situations are all quite different.

The BaNanos Team is a team of eight 8th grade members from two different schools in Hopkins Minnesota and one homeschool which most of the members have been together in for 6 years now. This is their first time going to the World Festival, but they have been to the State competition every year. If you don't recognize their team name from years past - it is because they change thier name every year! How about Code Red, Deep Six, A.S. Utility Workers, etc? Grant Ovsak is the head coach of the BaNano's.

Vicki Coaty is a coach of an FLL team in suburban Minneapolis. This team has been together for many years.

Jon Hickman is co-coaching a very unique FLL team. This team is comprised of a kids at Benilde - St. Margaret's School in St. Louis Park, MN, and a group of kids from Olinca School in Mexico City. Jon has a counterpart in Mexico City. The teams will use Internet tools to collaborate.

Craig Wittman is an FLL and VEX coach in Arizona. Craig's FLL team represented AZ at the FLL world festival last season, and this year some of the kids are moving on to the VEX program.

World Festival Notes and Tips to Remember

2007-04-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

Helpful Future Tips for other teams;

-Bring some sort of trading items. It is a great way to meet people. It is really a big part of the free time activities at the Festival.

-Bring a couple of nicer gifts for teams that you really work closely with. It’s quite a nice gesture to exchange momentos.

-Unless everyone enjoys hauling items 11 blocks you should consider lining up transportation at Atlanta. There are ways to make this reasonable. The tournament is long and full of walking – more walking at the end is the last thing you want to do.

- Have a couple parents sign up for volunteering. Two of our parents did this and they had a great time. They still managed to see all of our performance rounds. Parents that have volunteered get access to the competition floor. The other parents had to watch from the stands. This wasn't too bad but being right there was very cool.

- Discuss with your team what they want to see on their free time. Some events take advance planning; such as the Aquarium, baseball, CNN tours.

- Figure out when you can safely let your team free to mingle with other teams. This is a large part of the fun. Its very rare to be able to talk to so many people from other countries that are interested in many of the same things you are.

By BaNano's Coach

World Festival - Day 4, BaNano's

2007-04-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Day 4 – Saturday
We had the day off. Some went to the FRC and VEX finals, others to the Carter Library and Museum, others to CNN, others to the Aquarium. All day trips were great.

That night we all headed back to the big Finale Gala. It was moved to indoors because of the threat of rain so we didn’t know what affect a late change would have on the festivities. We didn’t have much for expectations. The tickets roughly cost $40-45 and was included in our hotel costs. We thought it would include a hamburger buffet and maybe a variety show. We weren’t even close – words will be tough to describe how amazing this night was. We went down the escalator to enter the hall and they had a clown marching band. They were actually judges but they really could play. The clown cheerleaders were quite a sight. We all laughed quite a bit on the way to the entrance.

When we went into the room we were absolutely speechless. It was as big as the Mpls convention center. About 1/3 was configured with buffet lines and tables. At the end of this section was a full size concert stage. A band was already playing some rock and roll. Ozzy, Nirvana, Beasty Boys, AC/DC etc. Parents had to grin because the kids started hollering and jumping – they knew it was going to be a wild night. There was about 40 buffet lines and about 200+ tables. Wow, this was going to be big. We got our food and selected a table about 2/3rds back from the stage because it was very, very loud. The parents were being good sports but no way were we going to sit 100ft away from the stage. As we were eating and our eyes were adjusting to the light we noticed that the other 2/3rds of the space contained a full size carnival! The food went down quickly and the music mellowed out a bit as the 2nd band came on.

The kids were racing to the carnival. Lots of things to try there – I bet about 60 activities from joisting to laser tag to tilt-o-whirl to a pretty complete line of skill games. As FRC and VEX finished their awards ceremony it got pretty busy. I estimate about 7-8000 attendees. A ‘stomp’ band came on next, followed by a pretty decent hypnotist. The last ‘act’ had 4 drum sets and acrobatics similar in style to Cirque D’Solie. Fire batons and hulahoops etc. Near the end of our night we headed up stairs to watch some Karaoke. It was really fun watching the singing as whole teams took turns singing their favorite songs. On a few songs, 2 or 3 teams managed to get onstage and really sang hard.

We all stayed up late at the hotel that night. It was such an amazing event it was hard to relax. Lots of year and season retrospective talk here.
In Conclusion;

Our team was very thankful for being allowed to attend this wonderful event. We learned quite a bit and, of course, want to come back – who wouldn’t? The weekend was magical and the experience will never be forgotten.

By BaNano's Coach, Grant Ovsak

World Festival - Day 3, BaNano's

2007-04-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

Day 3 – Friday
We made it to the pits by 8:00. The programmers met with Taiwan and found that they were using timers – which have speed tied closely with battery drain. Some minor changes were made and their two missions looked a bit more reliable. We hoped their team was good at aiming since nearly all their missions used this technique.

We checked the call back board – we weren’t on the list. We were a bit disappointed but we knew the competition was very high so we didn’t dwell on it.

Our day was going to be mainly a table performance day so we practiced our robot a couple of times. Since each of our members get to run the robot in competition we concentrated on making sure these two members remembered all the nuances of the robot. Don’t forget this, and check that etc.

To summarize our runs – we started out by having one of our two missions fail. Unfortunately one mission runs 4 and the other runs 5 tasks. A couple of small changes and the next run was slightly better. The last run was our best but far below our expectations. It was disappointing but we had some good news to bring spirits up.

After our second mission we got a message asking us to return for a teamwork call back. It wasn’t on the board in the morning but we didn’t ask questions. We quickly returned to the judging room and had a meeting to remind everyone of how far we had come with bring on our new members, learning from the past, and trying out our new meeting strategies.
The call back was very interesting. 4 teams were called into one room with 4 tables of legos. The rules were simple. Work the teams in pairs and build a bridge to span the two tables. The gotcha was that no talking was allowed – only hand gestures and drawn pictures. We were paired with North Dakota which we thought was cool. Our team immediately moved our legos onto their table so that building would be more efficient. I thought that was a bold move and surely would have the judges jotting down notes. Our bridge came out very nice in 5 minutes and the other teams was a bit rickety. Only one round of questions to follow this up which I thought was a bit sparse. Question was "why do you think you should receive this award?" I thought it was going to be between us and Las Vegas since both answers were good. Peru discussed a lot about economic issues and how they worked together to raise money. We talked about helping each person develop skills and allowing them to work on areas that interested them even if they weren’t the strongest person for that position. Las Vegas talked about helping each other out with personal and school problems. In the end, Peru got this award. We were OK with the decision because Peru was very sincere in their answer and appeared to be a very good team.

Our alliance run at 3:00 was interesting. It was like an international tag team event. There was a really funny outcome. Taiwan’s both missions worked flawlessly and each of the other teams only completed one of two. Not a great final score but really fun nonetheless.

Next on the agenda was an hour and a half to clean our pit up and get to the closing ceremony. The team had probably only spent about 3 hours conversing with other teams so we freed the team and the parents cleaned the pit area. I don’t think many of our team members were able to visit with VEX or FRC teams much but I could tell they were intrigued by the bigger robots. I talked to a few teams and they comments to me were that we had much more programming than them. Their robots essentially run like remote control cars.

The team members really loved talking to the other teams. My son speaks French so he immediately talked to all the French teams. This was a highlight for him. He also talked a great deal with the Japan team. They were from Nara and he had visited Nara and Kyoto last year so they had a lot to talk about. Many great conversations with other teams happened in the free time we had. More time would have been appreciated. The kids traded all sorts of items – pins, buttons, pictures they painted, state memorabilia, trading cards, etc. It was a nice gesture to end a good conversation to exchange these items. The judges also liked sporting their new flair also.

The awards ceremony was very nice. Some very well thought out summaries were given and some high ranking donors were recognized. The awards were clearly "smoothed". Even the team that scored 3 – 400’s didn’t get a second award in technical or programming. That was ok, we just hoped there was one sitting there for us. A big surprise came when they announced 3rd place in Research Quality. Wow, what a rush. We got to go to the stage and give high fives to about 60 judges. Of all the awards given, I thought we had a chance at a couple. Programming is strong for us, teamwork also. Of the three, I agree with the judges, our research was the top strength this year. The team has chronicled the research efforts very well so I won’t repeat all the extra effort they made to learn as much as possible about Nano Technology this last year. What was interesting was the 1st and 2nd place teams each had patents in process for their solution. Wow, that really shows the level of competition here.

After the ceremony, we stayed up late and talked about what a great day we had. It was a rollercoaster but competitions always seem like that.

By BaNano's Coach, Grant Ovsak

World Festival - Day 2, BaNano's

2007-04-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

Day 2 – Thursday
We came to the Convention Center at 7:30 but had to wait in the lobby until 8:00. Since the Opening Ceremony was scheduled for 8:20 in the Dome we only had 5 minutes to find and setup our pit area before taking the 10 minute walk to the Dome. It was then that I realized that I needed more like 15 minutes to walk this distance.

The opening ceremony was great. Several teams from other countries greeted the attendees in an Olympic type entrance with flags and their traditional clothing.

The first day consisted of 2 morning trial performance runs and three presentation judging events in the afternoon. It was a pretty decent day but it didn’t allow much time for the team members to mix and mingle with the other 90 teams (30 countries represented). The practice time went well and we scored a 393 – which was our best ever. Our robot wasn’t our strong point so we were very satisfied with this performance.

Over lunch we met with our alliance members and set a time to meet that afternoon when the rest of our obligations were completed. Our team consisted of Denmark, Montana and Taiwan. Taiwan had a bit of trouble with English but a couple of parents did a good job translating. It was also interesting to us that the Taiwan team was very young – I’d guess 4th graders. Most other states and countries do not divide grade divisions like MN so this is possible. We signed up for about a ½ hour of time for the practice tables since we didn’t know anything about the other team’s robots.

The afternoon had 3 events back to back to back with only 5 minutes between. This was nerve-wracking and tough to switch gears mentally. First was the presentation – it was in a single large room with only fabric between 10ftx15ft cubes. It was almost too loud to hear our own presentation. Our feedback to the planning committee was that something needs to be fixed here. The conditions were not good at all. The questions from the committee were scarce. I think they only asked 3 questions in the 10 minutes time we had. Our team is used to talking so we didn’t have a problem filling the void.

After the presentation we had 5 minutes to make sure our Technical presentation items were in order. Same type of room but this time the 10ftx15ft room had the 4x8ft table in it. The judges seemed a bit confused when the team tried to divide into the programming discussion and the table discussion. The two judges split and tentatively listened. The judges were interested but not nearly at the level of strategy and robotic understanding that we were accustomed to in MN. I still don’t know if the judge listening to the programmers actually knew programming. I think he maybe asked 1 or 2 questions. It was pretty frustrated for the team since they took a lot of pride in the upgrades and programming robustness that they added since prior competitions.

After the technical discussion we had 5 minutes to discuss the next item. This time it was a big unknown – Teamwork. Earlier in the day, 2 judges stopped by in the pit area and talked to our team for about 15 minutes. This was what we were used to. The next 15 minutes was a big mystery – it was going to be a team work exercise. Once again, a small 10x15ft space but this time a table with a divider between the two sides with 4 chairs on each side. They needed to work cooperatively to build the same item without visually interacting. Only verbal communication was allowed. It went very well and these judges actually asked questions about what we had done to work together as a team.

These presentations went very well but it was hard to tell what the judges really thought. Time would tell we thought and we discussed our answers back at the pit. I think we ended up getting the main topics out in the open even with rather quiet judges.

We met with the other alliance teams at the practice tables and decided that it would be best to show our robot performance to each other. Denmark was very strong, Montana and us were about on par with each other. Taiwan struggled to complete any mission. There were about 40 kids crowding the tables and it was soon obvious that we were going to struggle with any group decisions. The coaches decided that we were going to pick 2 representatives from each team to meet and deliberate about the missions.

Our team picked one member that was good with strategy and another that excelled in programming. The group met for about 45 minutes and came up with a plan. It wasn’t easy to work with the existing mission combinations that each team had. We also agreed to meet with Taiwan in the morning to talk about programming since they also used Robolab. We were hoping that by talking a bit about programming with them that we could teach them some more robust methods of controlling their robot.

That night there was an ice cream social and talent show in Centennial Park. The talent show was excellent with about 15 teams singing, dancing or doing magic. We headed to bed relatively early.

More to come,
By BaNano's Coach, Grant Ovsak

World Festival - Day 1, BaNano's

2007-04-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

Hello,

We’ve just returned from Atlanta’s World Festival of Robotics. My team members will be adding their perspective but I thought I’d add a blog from a coach and parent viewpoint also. I’ll also try to document some advice for future teams that visit this event.

Day 1 – Wednesday
We arrived at about noon. We had arranged for a shuttle to bring our group of 19 to the hotel. We felt comfortable with the driver so we negotiated a per ride rate of $50 for the remaining days. For a group as big as us it was the perfect solution. Less than $3 a ride with needing only a 30 minute notice.
I had a coaches meeting that night and a large amount of information was conveyed. The schedule hadn’t been clear to me until that night. I could see that our days here would be packed. I also saw that there was a lot of walking involved from the Dome to/from the convention center. I had severed my Achilles tendon in an accident 5 weeks earlier and was only off my crutches for about a week prior. Walking was going ok but I was slow.
I learned about our alliance – it sounded very interesting and only loosely organized. We needed to discuss with 3 other teams how to split up 8 of the 9 missions so that we each did 2 missions. No times or places were decided – only a final time to test the performance. The other part that worried me was that the ‘rules’ for the alliance weren’t in our packet. We’d get them tomorrow.

Most of our team spent the evening at the Atlanta Braves game. It was a nice night and the outdoor ballpark was fabulous. It was nice to relax.

By BaNano's Coach, Grant Ovsak

Entry 5

2007-04-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

Our team thought about the question that always gets brought up at the Directors cup finalist's interview with the team and that is, "What have you done to help your comunity be more aware of FLL and inspired others?". While we have had good answers like one team member went a lot deeper into our topic and actually made a few of our topic for a science project, and two of our members mentoring a little brother's new team. But we figured if we really wanted to blast the community with how cool and helpful First Lego League is we should hold a fun fest displaying Lego League. We called it the TechFest 2007 and after some talking we joined it up with a local event at The Works to get more people to see. We also got some more lego league teams to come in as well as a high school robotics one. It was a big hit! We showed an estimated 450 people our robot in action and explained how we did everything. We of course accustomed to age like the little ones were explained what the sensors do and the consept of telling it what to do by it's self with a computer, and the bigger one were explained the gears and the inner programming behind the bot. We also talked to the more interested ones about starting up a team and that if their team needed any help we'd be there. Unfortunately we didn't get to show any presentations because some teams had difficultys getting there in the sheets of snow out side (it was really bad snow) we also were glad that so many people came even with the snow. We also tried to maintain at least 2 tables running at the same time.

By The BaNanos Team

The Alliance – our favorite part of the world tournament

2007-04-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

Take 4 FLL teams from around the world – have those 4 teams divide up the 8 of the 9 FLL scoring missions – give them 3 minutes to run those missions one teams robot at a time and what score do you think a team can achieve?

Who cares - it’s the coolest thing about the world FLL tournament.

100 FLL teams divided into 25 Alliances – with each team running programs which work each time is an absolutely astounding site. Sitting in the stands watching the robots on the big screen was the highlight of our experience last year. Seeing each team’s best mission run was the most fantastic 90 minutes of robot watching I have ever experienced. All one could see on the big screen was one robot after another perfectly score in some of the most uniqu1 ways every mission on the table being attempted.

Behind the scenes it was even better – each alliance of 4 teams must work out on their own what robot will perform what mission and to what order. As a coach my proudest moment was when one of my team members and a team leader from Denmark worked out the entire sequence with the coaches from Colorado and France without coach interaction.

This year it appears our alliance is Arizona (us) Alaska , Australia and Saudi Arabia . Also our alliance mission is early in the sequence so we can get to the stands and watch the highlight film being made.

By Craig Wittman

Less than a week to the World Festival

2007-04-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

There will be around 100 teams at the world festival this year 20 more than when we attended last year. Last years team earned 3rd place trophies for its research project and alliance performance and honorable mention (4th) for robust design. Most important to me as coach was the team was selected for Gracious Professionalism which potentially each team can earn.

This level of performance I believe will be nearly impossible to attain once again. The FLL competition continues to get stronger each year. We have seen postings from many tournaments of consistent perfect 400 pt scores. Even if we do well in earning awards – one of the things I want everybody kids and parents to walk away with are good memories and an understanding what we have all accomplished, parents in support of robot practices for over 8 months and kids for how far they have come along.

So the last week we have worked on “what we discover is more important than what we win”. We have talked about our goals for tournament preparation, robot performance at the tournament and how we will do in judging. The limits I set for the goals where not how well we do versus other teams but how well we can do to our teams view of excellence. For example – if all we can score with the robot in practice is 360 and we can do that at the tournament we have achieved our robot performance goal. In judging – excellence has been defined as making sure the team can answer questions clearly and directly as best they can..

By Craig Wittman

Entry 4

2007-04-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

Good News!

We got invited back to go behind the scenes again at the Science Meuseum of Minnesota! You might ask,"Again?",but yes we had been invited there once before in a very lucky chain of helpful events.

First, in May 2006 soon after the topic was released we discovered a nano-technology investors seminar held at the U of MN. Even though we still had a long way to go unlike many of the other years where we all had atleast a little past experience we were generally clueless on the topic of nanotechnology so we wanted to get a head start on understanding this intimidating topic. The 3 hour seminar was very long and dry but we were prepared for this and we were notified that this was geared specifically for investors. We did however get some very good notes and were exsposed to a ton of ideas and concepts from nano dna segment transplants to nano space elevators. Also, we were the only kids in that entire room. This sparked many other people's curiosity and we got in many pictures of the seminar. The Science Museum of Minnesota were one of the people who's attention was caught and they came over and introduced them selves and invited us to come to the first day of the 2 day gathering of Scientists and Science Museums from all over the Nation who had come to discuss a new potential nano-technology exhibit and comment on proto-types. This went extremely well and we got more exsposure to other aspects of nano technology but only now all of these were geared to a lower age range and we got a better understanding of some of the more complex subjects. They too were impressed by how much we helped that meeting and invited us to come again the next day. During these day long meetings we made some very good contacts. One of such was a professeur named Professeur Eray Aydil who is head of reasearch at the U of MN for Nano Solar Cells. He invited us to come and take a tour of all of his labs from some of his graduate students and all of the great information we got there influenced us to pick Nano Solar Cells as our research topic. Now the Science Museum of Minnesota again is hosting a follow up meeting just like the last one where we will go over all of the new and improved protoypes and learn even more about the reaches and possibiliuties of nanotechnology. This outstandingly helpful chain of events has proven to us the importance of making good contacts and jumping for every opportunity that you get.

By The BaNanos team

Entry 3

2007-04-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

In Entry 1 we talked about a list of things we were going to change. This year we had picked Nano Solar Cells as our topic. Here are the changes for the presentation we decided:
~ Make our performance a little more creative
~ Interview a contact at the Excel Energy center
~ focus on the way of using the solar cells in a power plant instead of just the idea of nano solar cells.
~ Include possible health effects on environment
~ Transform our presentation into more of a flowing skit than just a reading
~ Include more posters with big words and clear points in each script.

We have changed our script and theme of the skit everytime between each of the tournaments. For Regionals we did a skit titled "Curious George Goes to the Nano Lab". This one was creative and funny but the monkey wasn't able to talk and to get the teammate playing the monkey a role we had her come out of character, which got kind of confusing. For State we did a skit about an Environmentalist arguing with a buisnessman about how much fossil fuels to burn (environmentalist wants clean environment and less fossil fuels burnt, buisness man wants to burn more fossil fuels for the growing energy need). This argument was solved by Nano solar cells using no fossil fuels and supplying more energy than normal solar cells. Then now for the World Festival we developed a slightly new concept where a lobbyist(instead of a hippy) confronted a buisness man about environmental concerns and notifying him about other things people have done to stop it. He (the buisnessman) in turn contacts the Energy company who holds a meeting discussing the problem when a scientist suggests Nano Solar Cells. The Rest of the commitee discusses how it could be done, how it would help, and how it works. Then the topic of potential heath problems comes up this gets sent to the Mayo Clinic who informs them that it is Safe and there are only minor possibilities that can be prevented. Every change that has been made has been based very strongly on the coments we have recieved from our judges.

By The BaNanos Team

Entry 2

2007-04-05T10:54:00.000-07:00

In the performance feild of the list made in the previous blog here are most of the major changes:
~ we had to make our robot level
~ use a new strategy to only have two, bigger missions to eliminate time
~ fix the line follower to make it end in the same direction every time
~ reduce human error by either haveing better jigs or starting from a well known position (back corner) and then having the robot turn.
and
~ have our robot line it self up with the board much more often (like line up with wall, or align with a line)

We got so excited that at our team member who keeps the robot at home asked if he could just make the robot level. We agreed, but later we remembered that we had our live interview from Kare 11 news the next day!
And now all of our attachments and old programs didn't work! So he had a sleepover with another teammate at his house and they worked untill 2:00 AM to modify all of the attachments and programs to make our robot presentable. Then at 6:00 the following day while me and my teammate were still trying to recover from that late night we had the interview. The interview itself went pretty good but if any of the watchers had actually known what the robot was trying to do would have laughed because the lights in the studio wee glaring sideways at the robot completely blinding it. But luckily it still looked pretty cool on the missions where we didn't use lightsensors too much.

By The BaNanos Team

Kids coaching kids

2007-04-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

In conjunction with the Regional Science Fair – the local tech companies put on a science Fun Fest attracting 6,000+ kids over 3 days making connections between math and science in school and real world applications. Most of the exhibits are hands on demonstrating a fun technology or science principle staffed by engineers and scientists.

One of the exhibits is Lego robotics that was developed by schoolteachers and staff who run a Lego robot training class. They have developed a fantastic curriculum for students to successfully program from scratch a robot and run it on a simple mission in well under 5 minutes. Using eight laptops on loan from a local company and pre built robots every hour the both produces over 100 new robot programmers.

The exhibit staff is a mixture of FLL coaches and team members with the team members doing most of the work and the coaches running crowd control. It is also an opportunity for the kids to show of the FLL robots and competition table and for FLL coaches recruit new coaches and teams.

Over the course of the day the kids learn to anticipate what problems and issues their “students” will have and how to overcome them. Like us adult coaches they have to restrain themselves from solving the problem for the student.

Also during the day the kids had the opportunity to show off their FLL robot and discover that the robot needs some more work before we go to Atlanta in 3 weeks for the world festival. Connecting the two learning experiences for the day was pretty easy –I asked them did you learn to anticipate what your “students” were going to ask – what else can go wrong with the robot in Atlanta ?

Now Its Time to Get Ready For Atlanta -

Typical of each team I have coached the kids time line is about 2-3 weeks. We are 2 weeks away from our season finale and the kids walked away from coaching other kids fired up about getting things tuned up in the next few weeks and about how to make things better for next years Fun Fest

By Craig Wittman