FTC Robotics: The Tournament #1

 

Yesterday was our very very first time as a team competing in an FTC tournament. Wow, was that exciting! It came down to the wire on Friday and Saturday with marathon sessions to get the robot ready to pass inspection and be allowed to compete. Then bright and early Sunday morning we all piled into the vans and drove to Portland for the tournament.

The first exciting thing is that we passed the hardware and software inspection on our very first try! This is not as easy as it sounds. It involves a long checklist that includes presenting a Bill of Materials for the different items you've used on your robot, having everything mounted securely, fitting the entire robot and attachments inside an 18"x 18" x 18" cube, using the correct length, width, and thickness of materials and only the materials on the approved list (no duct tape allowed! these robots have to be engineered, not slapped together). Also using the approved software templates, having the correct wireless protocols (an alternative to Bluetooth called Samantha that's still in the Beta stages), and having both autonomous and driver controlled "tele-op" programs installed on the robot's NXT brain. Here, Mackenzie and teammate Dustin talk with the inspection judge about the parts used on the robot.

Then we discovered that a huge part of the tournament is in creating alliances and scouting other teams to discover their advantages and disadvantages. You play five matches in the qualifying rounds, and in each match you are allied with one team (randomly selected) and play against two other teams. Each robot and driver team brings their own strengths and weaknesses to the playing field, so each match needs a different strategy. The good teams go around and assess each robot and team early in the day to determine how to play the game to their advantage.

Then comes judging, where several rounds of judges grill the team about the robot, the programming, their community involvement, how they operate as a team, decision-making processes, etc. Part of the point of this exercise is to guarantee that one of the main tenet's of FIRST competitions is upheld: The kids do all the work. It quickly becomes apparent if adult coaches, mentors, and technical advisors have had input into the process, or if the kids on the team have owned all of the decisions (both good and bad) and actually did the work themselves. Also, both the scouting and the judging encourage the kids to develop good communications skills.

After that, it's time for the exciting part of the competition: five rounds on the robot arena, paired with different teams. Despite coming into this competition thinking of it as a "learning experience" since this was our first time, our team did really really well! Our first couple of rounds were a little shaky. Our robot acquitted itself well and our driver team of Mackenzie and Dustin turned out to be outstanding. But penalties caused by our alliance partners wiped out all of the points we gained in the first two rounds, leaving us with a score of 0! It was a little disheartening, but the kids on the team stayed very positive and were having a great time. Then things turned around and they really started getting the hang of how to partner and talk strategy with their alliance teams. By the end of the 4th round, we were in 3rd place! In the last few matches though, the top teams bumped us down and we ended in 7th, but still had a very exciting day overall.

Our most exciting moment was in our last match. We were allied with a good team, but were up against the #1 and #2 teams. It was a really tough match, but ended up very close. In the last few seconds, we managed to balance both ours and our alliance's on this teeter-totter element on the arena that's called "the bridge". That's tough because one robot has to push down the bridge with an attachment, then drive up on it. Then they have to tip it toward the other robot, let them drive on, and then somehow balance it. Meanwhile, the other team was balanced on the bridge and "the mountain". So the end of the match looked like this. All of these balancing places scored points for the teams.

All in all, I haven't seen Mackenzie look so overall excited and happy in forever. He was definitely in his element between the robots, the strategy, the alliances and the game play.

Robotics Team Headed to Competition

I haven't had the time to sneeze lately, let alone keep up with my blogs. So I apologize, especially to those family members who come here looking for kid photos and updates. This weekend is a microcosm of the craziness that is our life these days. Saturday morning I coach the Master's swim team. By noon I need to have Asa at a dance performance. I'm also doing the photography for the dancers. That gets done at 4:30, by 5:00 we're having our last robotics practice before heading to the tournament at 7:00 am Sunday morning.

But the good news is that our robotics team t-shirts arrived and they look awesome! Mackenzie designed the shirt this year, so here he is modeling it. If you think he looks even taller than he did the last time you saw him, you're absolutely right. He's grown over an inch and a half  SINCE CHRISTMAS. No, that is not a typo. He's just a hair taller than Wayne now.

The team spent seven hours today working on the robot, getting it ready for competition. Sunday we'll drive over a hundred miles and spend all day at the competition, returning home around 9:00 pm. So it will be a CRAZY weekend. Wish us luck!

Santa Claus, Physics, and More

So I did it this year, I came clean to Asa that there is no Santa Claus. You might think that at age 11, this would be a no-brainer, and of course she already knew. But I've always felt it's important to keep the magical thinking alive as long as the kid wants to. And as somebody who still anthropomorphizes my favorite plaid stuffed hippo, Horace, I'm a sucker for magical thinking. Of course, this means that Mackenzie has to give up his spot as Santa. He's stayed up the last few Christmases, stuffing stockings and having fun being the big brother. I don't know how this Christmas Eve will play out, it's an ever-evolving thing as the kids get older.


For those of you who still have younger kids, or kids interested in physics, or just like this kind of thing, here's a great physics-based proof that Santa Claus really exists.

In other physics news, our FIRST FTC robotics team went up to an event last weekend at Portland State University. In addition to working on their robotics stuff, the kids got to tour a whole bunch of the engineering labs there. We were very impressed! They got to help move a laser (over 800 pounds!), talked with a chemistry grad student about his work detecting nanoparticles in soil and water using an atomic mass spectrometer, saw a wind tunnel where they are testing wind turbine and wind energy farm designs, and best of all they got to spend a lot of time with someone from the robotics department discussing a robot called "Shrödinger's Cat" . Those of you that are physics buffs will understand why that's so funny. The cat lives in a box and is mobile, he runs around the building using two cameras, touch sensors, and other methods for object avoidance. He has a mental map of where he is, and can even go in the elevators and ask people to press the buttons to take him to another floor. He can interact with other robots in the lab, including a talking head of Nils Bohr.

I loved hearing all of the questions our kids came up with for the roboticist. Mackenzie was especially interested in the vision processing algorithms and how he could distinguish between objects and blank space (like a doorway). One of the things this tour really showed me was how much science being involved with FIRST has brought into his life. He already knew about Nanotechnology because back when he was on a FIRST FLL team, they did a research project on Nanoparticles and one of the things they discovered was all about the potential dangers of these particles when they end up in our water and soil. Another year, they did a project on alternative energy and it was his part of the project to research wind generators. So all of the things he was seeing in these science and engineering labs, he had already had a taste of through FIRST.

Crazy Weekend Part 1: Robotics

Last weekend was the culmination of several months of craziness: robotics team meetings and Nutcracker rehearsals, endless details to manage (where in town can I buy a pink leotard? tri-fold presentation boards? Do I have all of the team permission slips filled out?) Of course, it was all worth it as we headed off to the regional robotics competition with our team Veni Vidi Roboti excited to see their robot on the field and present their research project, and as Asa took the stage in her first dance solo.

Unfortunately, bad weather in the form of horrifying ice and sleet made the roads a skating rink (32 accidents in one stretch of I-5 alone) and this complicated our plans greatly. The night before the robotics tournament, we still weren't sure if it was even going to occur, but finally after 3 hours of delays, the tournament did take place on Saturday for which I was very grateful. These kids have worked way too hard to miss out on competing!

The team had a great time at the tournament. They really impressed me with their morale, their coolness under difficult circumstances, their ability to work as a team, and their overall positive and encouraging attitude. Unfortunately, the robot took on a mind of its own at the tournament, with programs that worked fine on the practice table suddenly going haywire on the actual competition table. It was very frustrating for the kids, but they really were very professional about it all. I was extremely proud, both as a coach and as a parent, of this team. I know that we coaches really did our job well not when the robot scored high (it didn't), but when the kids accepted what had happened, worked to fix what they could, and moved forward with a positive attitude. This is not easy for adult engineers, so to see a team of kids accomplish this was impressive.

Of course, the robot performance is only 25% of the total competition, with the rest coming from the teamwork judging, robot technical judging, and the research project presentation judging. I knew the team would knock the socks off of the judges in those areas and they did. They ended up winning first place in the research project category. I haven't posted anything about their project up until now, because I didn't want to give away their subject publicly. The theme this year was transportation, they were to identify a transportation problem in their community, and propose a solution for that problem. Almost all of the teams at the competition chose things like pedestrian safety, school bus scheduling, walking and biking to school, etc. Well, our team chose the solar system as their community, and the problem of orbital debris (or "space junk") as the problem. Their research involved things like calling up a NASA representative, metal recycling specialists, and arranging a tour for themselves at a local metal recycling facility. They really poured a lot of energy into this project and it showed. I'll have to post the text of it here later this week as it was truly impressive. I could tell the judges were really impressed with what they had accomplished.

Lastly, the icing on the cake for the competition was that they got a Core Values Nomination from the head judge. FLL takes their core values very seriously, and they place a big emphasis on teams exhibiting these values, including the value of "gracious professionalism" which means competing like crazy but respecting and exchanging ideas with your competing teams. Here you can see a moment that occured in a hallway between competition rounds where our team and another got a moment to discuss their robot designs. This is really what FLL is all about, right here, the learning and growth that occurs when these kids share what they've learned with each other.

Before we went to this competition, I had told the team that I didn't care a bit if they won or were the absolute last on the robot table, but if they came away from the competition having done their best and worked well as a team I would be very happy. Well, they accomplished all of that and then some, and as always I'm honored to have been a part of their journey, and very proud of all the work that they put into this competition. Having the head judge acknowledge their teamwork and core values really just confirmed what I knew about these great kids.

On Our Way to Robotics Again

It's that time of year again, when our robotics team heads off to the regional tournament with a robot built and programmed and a research project completed, and I as a coach am pulling out my hair trying to keep track of all the details, equipment, and schedules that need keeping track of to get us all there in one piece. For me, this week is probably the single most stressful of the entire year, mostly because I don't want to be the person who messes everything up in forgetting something crucial!

Watching the team present their research project and robot at the public library last week, I'm reminded that it is all more than worthwhile. I know just in watching Mackenzie over the four years that he's been involved in this program, it has given him many things. Most especially, the confidence to speak in public about complex subjects, and the ability to reach out to experts in various fields to ask for their assistance. This year the team did their research project on Orbital Space Debris, quite a hefty problem to try to solve. One of the things Mackenzie did was to call up the NASA representative for Oregon and Washington and ask if he would assist in answering some questions. He also picked up the phone and arranged for a tour of a local metal recycling facility.

Watching these kids answer questions from the audience at the library about their research and their design and programming of the robot, I was struck by how much each of them has developed in maturity and poise and public presentation skills. I know for Mackenzie too it has sparked an interest in all things engineering and programming related, and his programming skills this year have really taken off. For this year's competition, he wrote a line-following program that navigates the robot around the table following the black lines on the mat. Each year that we've done FLL robotics, his abilities in these areas have grown and grown.

So wish us luck as we travel to the competition this weekend, I'm excited to celebrate all that they've learned and accomplished as a team this year.

Enter the Crazy Week

One week from today until the robotics team goes to the State championships. I've got a million details going through my head, and the kids are getting excited. They've polished up a couple of programs and added a couple more, added a few details to their research project presentation, and now it's just down to making pit table decorations, costumes, and stuff to hand out to other teams. Fun stuff! But for me, it includes making sure I've got all the paperwork, directions, hotel reservations, bins, boxes, and stuff ready to go. Enter the crazy week!

They Did It Again!!!!!

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one, but the kids won the robotics tournament yesterday. As in got the champion's award. Wow!

The tournament was very up and down for them. They were the first ones to go through project judging, and the judges seemed kind of "eh", but maybe they were still waking up. Regardless, the kids did great in the project (I think!). For one thing, they memorized all of the lines for their play, and some of them (most especially Asa, the narrator) had a LOT of lines.

Then they went on to technical judging, which I think they really aced. Although they're a pretty young team, they attempted a lot more technical sophistication this year, using sensors, loops, variables, and subroutines in their programs. They all explained themselves very well, and the fact that they each wrote their own programs was a real bonus I think. Mackenzie was able to explain to one of the judges his program that used input from a sensor that fed into a decision tree and executed one of several sub-routines, and I could see that the judge was really impressed.

In teamwork judging, I know they did awesome. It's clear that these kids are all good friends and they work together very well. As always, I am proudest of the fact that they are a great team and are positive to each other and to all the other teams there.

On the robot table, their first run was an unmitigated disaster. I think they scored 20 points, LOL. That's out of the 170 they could get if all of their missions went well. One of Mackenzie's programs that we thought operated within the rules was ruled otherwise by a judge, and a well-meaning volunteer interrupted one of Mikke's programs with a ruling that was then over-ruled by the head judge mid-round. So it was very confusing. Their second round wasn't much better, with Asa's program going haywire for unexplained reasons.

By that time they decided to head to the practice room and re-write some stuff in the 30 minute break between rounds. Mackenzie re-wrote his program to conform to the new interpretation of the rule, and I tried to soothe the kids' ruffled feathers. They felt like things were being changed right out from under them, and I explained that it might not be entirely unintentional. After all, in the real world when you're an engineer you might work on a project for months only to have the marketing team come tell you that due to their latest focus group or marketing survey you now need to rework it an entirely different way, or discard those features and write entirely new ones. It's good for them to be able to quickly re-think their strategies or re-work their programs. After that, they buckled down and got to work and their last table run was much much better.

It was clear that all of the teams were struggling with this year's table, which seemed much harder than last year. So I knew that even if we weren't scoring as high as we'd hoped to, the other teams were in more or less the same pickle. I figured we had a good chance of being a runner-up and going to the state tournament, but when they announced the runners-up and we weren't in there, I wasn't sure what to think. But as it turns out, they did it again and won the overall champion's award. They didn't score the highest on the table, same as last year, but their work on all aspects of the project including trying our best to exemplify the FLL core values pulled them through!

I just looked through all of the photos which are so great, and will have to post some soon. Right now though I'm just so proud of all the work these kids have done!

Insanity, Continued

Five kids, a mom/coach, a car, lots of sleet, rain, and wind, darkness, an hour and a half drive, a motel where the power keeps fluctuating due to the storm, and a robotics tournament tomorrow.

Actually, the kids are having a blast. They're in the hotel room playing D&D and just generally having a fun time. They've all worked so hard in the last two weeks, with robotics team practice several days in a row each week. Their research project is simply awesome (I'll share after the tournament) and their robot runs have been getting better and better (although as the team is largely young and pretty new to this, it's not quite as advanced as some teams will surely be.) More than anything, they're having fun and really enjoying the experience.

I'll update after the tournament tomorrow!

It's the Most Insane Time of the Year

I think I post something like this about every year in this week. What the Heck Was I Thinking????

In the next few days we have 4 play rehearsals, 3 robotics practices, 2 research project presentations to give for our robotics team, 2 performances of Scrooge that Asa is in, 1 karate belt test, 1 robotics competition in another city, and a partridge in a pear tree.

You know, I love this crazy busy wonderful fun-filled unschooling life of ours. But this one week a year, it always kicks my butt.

Our New FLL Robotics Team Blog

We've been up and programming (not to mention building, researching, and planning) with this year's FLL Robotics team. The team has chosen their new name: Veni, Vidi, Roboti (I came, I saw, I built a robot) and I've got a new blog up for the team with some photos and video of one of the challenges we build from the Mayan Adventure NXT book this summer. I'll be adding more as the team progresses into this year's Climate Challenge season.

Inspired

Ever since we've gotten back from the FLL World Festival, Mackenzie has been working with the robot. Inspired by a team that used the ultrasonic sensor, he hooked one up to our 'bot and wrote a program that navigates around the house by sampling the sensor and if it encounters an obstacle it backs up and turns in another direction. It does have a slight problem with stairs (going down), not unlike my kids when they were small.

It's one of the greatest testimonials to the wonderful competitors at the World Fest that the kids came back so energized and inspired. We will be presenting our experiences to the Eugene Kiwanis group next month, and are also planning a public presentation to get more kids and potential coaches involved in starting up their own FLL teams. Mackenzie has already been talking with younger neighborhood kids and he is thinking about mentoring them as a JFLL team as well. Exciting stuff!

We're Back, Many Amazing Tales to Tell

There were 81 teams at the World Festival from the 11,000 FLL teams around the world. Our team made friends with teams from the Northwest that were on our airplane (big wave to the Gothic Lawn Gnomes and Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies, who were awesome!) an all-girls team from Saudi Arabia staying in our hotel, and the team from Mexico that had the pit table right next to ours. All of these teams had won their region or country's championships to get there and they were not just technically incredible (!!!!) but wonderfully nice kids. It was such an amazing experience, we're all still processing it, but I will put up a slide show as soon as I can make it through the 600 photos I took and cull out some great ones. To walk up the ramp into the Georgia Dome with these kids and compete on the floor with teams from all over the world was just incredible, and made all the hard work of the last few weeks really worth it.

There were also over 300 teams of the high school age robotics championships (working with much bigger robots, some the size of small refridgerators!) and the kids were really impressed with them and are excited about future opportunities as they get older as well.

One Step Ahead of Total Chaos

We leave for Atlanta in a week and one day! Having just got back from D.C. last weekend, and having a ton of stuff to do as the coach of a Team in Training triathlon team (a position I took on when I had absolutely no idea that our kids would end up going to this robotics World Festival thingie), and having our usual activities and homeschooling and all that, I feel like I'm just one step ahead of a gigantic rolling 8-Ball. I know once we get to the World Festival, it will be a total blast. The kids are very excited about meeting other teams from around the country and around the world, and they've been working very hard on their robot.

That's one thing I'm always excited and impressed with about our team. They're never content to just rest on their laurels, they're always trying to improve. When we won the Regional Tournament, our robot's top score was 230 points. We mostly won on the strength of our research project and our 100% teamwork score. At State, the kids had added programs and totally re-worked our table run, and the robot scored 290 points, which they were extremely excited about. Of course, the team that won state managed a whopping 400 points, wow. This last couple of weeks they have been working hard to implement two new missions, and that brings our best table run up to 325 points. We all know we won't be in the league of some of the incredible teams at Worlds, but I am very proud of them all for continuing to improve on their robot's performance and on the number of missions they're attempting. They are awesome!

15 Minutes of Fame

Every day that goes by with this robotics team, I see what an amazing experience it is for our kids. It has been opening up whole new vistas lately. This week, the team was invited to give their research project presentation to the supervisors and managers meeting of our local utility company. There were about 75 people there, and they were wonderfully supportive and interested in what these kids had to say. A local TV station showed up and filmed and interviewed the team members, and they put a spot on the evening news. The kids were all very impressively self-composed, though we all talked about how nervous we were afterwards. They did great, and came across with their usual enthusiasm.

















A man from the utility company is helping the kids with adding a cost/benefit analysis to their research project, and I think he will be a wonderful contact to have as the team goes forward. He came to our practice last week and gave the kids some great feedback on their project. As the next year's theme is also energy-related (global warming), I feel that we've forged some connections that will be really helpful to the team in our next season as well!

Up For the Challenge

We had our first robotics team meeting yesterday, looking forward to the World Festival next month. The kids were raring to go! Not content to rest on their laurels, they want to tackle even more of the mission challenges, and add in a cost/benefit analysis for their research project. A man from our local utility company's education and outreach program visited our team meeting yesterday. He's willing to help the kids with the cost/benefit analysis, and the team will also be doing a presentation at the utility company next week! They are also going to be one of our major sponsors.

So far, we've raised about half of the money that we need to get to the World Festival, with three sponsors of $500 or more, and a bunch of people contributing smaller amounts. It's wonderful to see the kind of support that can come out of your own community for an opportunity like this for the kids. We've also heard from many business owners, friends, and family about their own interests in the fields of engineering and sustainable energy. This opportunity to go to the World Festival is expanding the kids' world in many ways - allowing them to do further community outreach than we ever had planned for the team initially. Also, at the world festival, they will have an additional "Alliance" mission challenge, where they will be paired with several other teams from different places in the country or world. What an incredible opportunity for them to get to know team members from different places! I'm sure you can tell from my overabundant use of exclamation marks that I am very excited for our kids and for the team over these amazing possibilities that have been opening up before us.

Amazing News

If you've been reading this blog, you've seen the journey that we've taken this year with the FLL Robotics team that the kids are on (and that I've been coaching), the Solar Dragons. Well, we just found out this weekend that we have been selected to go to the WORLD Robotics Festival!!!!!! We will be one of 84 teams from the 10,000 around the world competing for 3 days in Atlanta, Georgia (I think in the Georgia Dome). I think one of the most exciting things about this nomination is how they were nominated. FLL has a set of “Core Values” that they promote among the kids participating in their robotics program. The values include working as a team, sharing their experiences with others, exhibiting “Gracious Professionalism” at all times, and honoring the spirit of friendly competition. There is a special process by which teams who exhibit exemplary core values can become nominated for a chance to compete at the FIRST World Festival. The Solar Dragons received just such a nomination, one of 12 given out in the world. Wow!!!! These kids are truly amazing.

Now, we just need some very very good thoughts and prayers that we can fundraise the money needed to get the whole team there and register them for the championships. Keep your fingers crossed for us, and if you know any individuals or corporations that might be willing to sponsor our team, let me know (the back of our team t-shirts is definitely up for some sponsors!)

Exciting News - Robotics!

I am excited to share two things about our robotics team today. One is this video slideshow I made chronicling our entire season so far. You can really see the heart and soul these teammates poured into meeting the challenges of the robotics competition:


The second thing I want to share is that out of 400 robotics teams in Oregon, our team has been chosen (along with another team) to represent Oregon in the selection process to attend the World robotics championships!!! The selection is based on your team exemplifying the "Core Values" of FIRST Lego League:
• We are a team.
• We do the work to find the solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors.
• We honor the spirit of friendly competition.
• What we discover is more important than what we win.
• We share our experiences with others.
• We display gracious professionalism in everything we do.
• We have fun!

Our team was recommended by the teamwork judges at the competitions to be nominated, and the kids had to write an essay answering six questions about these core values and how our team worked. From this process, they were chosen to represent Oregon. Now their essay (along with those from 200 teams around the world) will go on to the World selection committee, who will choose 10 teams to attend the World festival based on these Core Values nominations.

Please keep those fingers crossed for us! Our team has been simply amazing this year, and these kids have been awesome and worked so hard and are such great teammates. I am so proud of them over this nomination!!!

Robotics State Tournament

Wow, if you have any kids (or are yourself) interested in engineering, technology, or robotics, or just want to be impressed by the minds of young people, find one of these FIRST Lego League state tournaments and go to it. What you'll see is dozens of teams of young people who have taken the exact same challenges and built an amazing array of robot styles, shapes, programs, and attachments to complete these challenges. It was so cool to see how each team approached the design differently. And not just the robot design, but how it went about the missions, whether it combined them, had attachments that worked for multiple missions, or came back to base for attachment changes and sending out again.

The robot table competition was in a big gym, with six tables going at all times. Two of them appeared on the big screen at the back of the gym, which was great because you could really see the details on all of these different robots up close, and how they approached their mission objectives. The kids also thought it was pretty cool that they got to be on the big TV screen.

Our team did really well, with the most exciting moment coming on their first table run. Every one of their robot's ten missions executed flawlessly, with the last mission being accomplished just at the ring of the 2 1/2 minute final buzzer. This gave them a table score of 270, the highest they've ever achieved. Given that some of these programs were written in the weeks between the regional competition and the state championships, they were very excited to have such a perfect showing. Their top score at regionals had been 220, so this was a big leap up. Of course, the other teams here were also all regional champions, so some teams posted scores as high as a perfect 400. Still our team scored in the top 1/3 of all the teams there, and I consider that exceptional for their first time at State.

Their research presentation, teamwork judging, and technical judging all went well, and as usual I was impressed by the poise and hard work that all of the kids exhibited in these intense environments. At the end of the day, they won an award for robot reliability, which is quite an honor. I know the kids would've liked to win some big overall award, but I think they did very well to be there at State and getting an award at all was icing on the cake. Next year, they'll have a much better idea of what areas they need to focus on if they're going to perform even better, but right now I couldn't be more proud!

UNBELIEVABLE

So, my kids' robotics team, the Solar Dragons, went to the regional tournament last weekend. I knew that they were very well prepared, their robot was solid, they had put in a lot of time perfecting their programs, their runs on the challenge table, their research project and presentation, and I knew that they were operating as an exceptional team with respect for each other and for the other teams. What I didn't even imagine in my wildest dreams is that they would WIN THE WHOLE TOURNAMENT! Yep, that's it. They really did it!

First of all, their runs on the robot table went very well. They practiced their approach so many times that there was no fumbling or nervousness at the table, just a smooth running of all the things they needed to do (remove and replace attachments, add cargo, aim robot, select program, run robot). They had decided that they would all run their programs at the table, but according to Lego competition rules, only two of them could be at the table at any given time, so they took a tag-team approach. They helped each other out, and as each kid was done with their turn, they tagged the next.

They also faced three panels of judges. One teamwork panel that asked them questions about how they worked as a team (my favorite moments, when they asked things like "who is your team leader" and the kids said "we operate by consensus", LOL.) One panel was technical judging, where they had the kids run their programs and asked them about their programs and robot design, and a third panel evaluated their research project (they had five minutes to do a presentation, and another five minutes of Q&A - they actually knew their stuff so well, the panel ran out of questions to ask them!). When we saw the research projects of some of the other groups of kids, I knew that our kids would do really well. Many kids from school teams had used their classrooms or part of their school building for the energy audit. While this was probably technically admissible, I think the real goal from Lego FIRST League in setting this as a project for this year was to get the kids out and interacting with the community. Since our team really did choose a big and complex public building to audit, and researched extensively on alternative energy solutions, I knew they'd wow the judges (and they did!).

I am proudest of the fact that they scored a perfect 100 on teamwork. I know they're a great group of kids and they have worked so well together and have had so much fun together, it really showed. Whenever they've made a team decision, it has almost always been unamimous. I think it also really speaks volumes that we have two pairs of siblings on the team (not always the easiest to work with your own family members!) and that the kids come from different educational venues (two different schools plus some homeschoolers). They also got the highest score on their research presentation, something they've put so much time and effort into (see my previous post for a description of what they did). The got the 2nd highest score on the robot table as well, garnering 195 points with their seven mission programs.

So without further ado, here's some pics of these magnificent kids in action!

Here's the table setup in the main competition hall. Two teams compete against each other in timed table runs.



Their first run at the table, Claire and Asa work together to send the robot out on a mission to plant trees.



Time for their technical presentation. Whoops, I forgot to bring the folder with printouts of their programming. Good thing I'm a trained runner!




Waiting for their turn.



Mackenzie and Daniel get the power lines in place, the rest of the team waits behind for their turn to be tagged.




Waiting outside the presentation judging room. It was cold enough to snow and the poor kids were shivering. They're holding the photos for their research presentation.




Presenting to the panel of judges.



We were all so impressed with this kid, Thomas. His entire team backed out, but he came and competed all by himself!



We can't believe it, we won the whole thing!

Lego Robotics!

I've probably mentioned it somewhere in the last couple of months, but I'm coaching the kids' Lego Robotics team for the first time this year. Last year, they had a great time with the months of teamwork and then the big competition (which is really for fun, not seriously competitive for them).
Their coach from last year moved away, so I took it on this year and that certainly has made me appreciate all of the work the coach did last year! I've been meaning to write about it for awhile but... I've been too busy!

All in all, the Lego FIRST League competitions are an excellent experience. They stress teamwork, "gracious professionalism", honoring the process over the end-product, and having the kids do all the work. So the coach literally can't even make a suggestion as to how they should do something (which is very hard for this engineering brain of mine to keep in mind!)

Our team has six kids, ages 8 to 14. Two girls and six boys. I am constantly impressed by their abilities to work hard as a team, put in a ton of effort, and come up with creative solutions. The robotics challenge this year was exceedingly difficult - an order of magnitude more complex than last years'. On top of that, the kids had to select a public building and perform a utility audit of the building, then research alternative energies and make suggestions on how the building could become more energy-efficient. In addition, they need to present this information in a public forum. They'll be doing that today with a presentation at our public library.

Next week we will go to our competition. They'll have three tries with their robot on the challenge table, they'll present their research project to a panel of judges, face another panel for technical judging, and a third panel for teamwork judging. I have faith that they will all do a terrific job, but I'm not sure if I will survive the day without an anxiety attack. My to-do list to get ready for this event reads about as long as the one before my wedding day (without having to make 500 hors d'oevres however). I have to have robots, spare parts, batteries, cables, connectors, presentation materials, kids, t-shirts, paperwork, parents, folders, nametags, sack lunches, and probably a million other things all in the right places. I remind myself, that just like when I do a triathlon (which is also an equipment-heavy event with complicated timing) that it will all be fun and totally worth it once its underway. Wish us luck!