tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80279317542340499492011-12-26T08:15:14.973-06:002010-2011 FLL Team #280FLL Team got robot?http://www.blogger.com/profile/17929333499100983607noreply@blogger.comBlogger471100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8027931754234049949.post-27745836883841920212010-12-14T16:05:00.001-06:002010-12-14T16:09:15.967-06:00

Body of test post

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got robot? views a webcast about biomedical engineering. The new season begins as it always does with brainstorming and research. This year's FLL theme is called Body Forward and is about biomedical engineering. After a ton of ideas the team decided to narrow our search to anything having to do with the head.  In addition to research got robot? spent a day doing a lab on the ultrasonic sensor

FLL Team got robot?http://www.blogger.com/profile/17929333499100983607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8027931754234049949.post-41296080798076483222010-09-07T08:15:00.003-05:002010-09-07T08:31:00.630-05:00

As a new season begins got robot? had it's first meeting on Saturday, Sept 4th. This is our third year as a team and patterns of what needs to be done and how to approach challenges seems second nature. The team enjoyed hot dogs and reunion time and then reviewed the mission videos on Youtube. After that it was downstairs to build the table elements. One of the things we're doing different this

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The FLL Body Forward game elements arrived while we were away so our neighbor signed for the package and held it for us until we got back. This year everything was sent in one long box. The bags of LEGOS neatly tucked in the center of the rolled mission mat. There are quite a few LEGOs and the mission models will be fun. We got a lot of rubber bands--lots of pushing and activating this year. Matt

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I received an email that the 2010 Body Forward field kit has shipped. It should be here on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Hard to believe the new season is around the corner already. Oh, by the way our team number this years is 280. May God bless all coaches and students this year.

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got robot? won the 1st place Research Project award at the Illinois State Tournament on Saturday, Jan. 16th, 2010. The got robot?'s project was chosen over 64 other top teams in attendance. Scott Evan's, game designer for FIRST LEGO Lego League and employee of FIRST, was in the room for call backs and observed the teams presentation to a panel of 13 judges. Scott (pictured in the hat) said

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Our team had its judging for State Tournament this evening. The Research Project, Teamwork, Technical, and Ambassador all in the span of 3 hours. The team did a fantastic job and really made me proud. They know their stuff -- and it showed! It was very loud in the gym to listen in on their technical judging but the kids said it went well. The judges seemed to like the engineering journal and

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I'm proud to say that Maddock Douglas, Inc. is now sponsoring INSciTE Illinois, the operational partner for FLL in our state. I work for Maddock Douglas and it gives me great pride to see a leading innovation agency partnering with an organization that nurtures the sense of wonder and innovation in America's next generation of thought leaders.

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bounced from twitter @firstlegoleague The thoughts and prayers of everyone at FIRST and the entire FLL community are with the citizens of Haiti. This is a terrible tragedy for the world. FIRST has not yet heard from our FLL Partners and team members in Haiti, but we remain hopeful that they and their families are okay. We will all do whatever we can to support them in the days ahead.

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From the development of the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) concept by FIRST and the LEGO Group and the first pilot tournaments in 1998 in the U.S., FLL has grown to more than 140,000 children in 56 countries projected to participate in the Smart Move season. Information obtained from FIRST LEGO League

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A couple of our team members found the videos below. It's always amazing to see how others go about accomplishing the various missions

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This is the bestest table run we've recorded. Our all time best table run, evah, is 400 smackers.

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got robot? attended their regional qualifier on Dec. 12th, in Rockford, Illinois. It was one of the smaller regional tournaments in Illinois with only 10 teams attending. They had a very good day and their teamwork, technical, and presentation judging went very, very well. Their table scores for the robot game were considerably lower than anticipated in part from the brand new, and much tackier

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The Mrs. and I were thumbing through our copy of the Daily Herald when we spot on page 5 of section 5 a press release about our team. Thanks Sue!

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got robot? did their very first 400 point table run on Dec. 6th!!

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Lego's in Paradise posted this video of a 400 point run on YouTube. I think their use of sensor is interesting. ">

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Like most projects much of FLL is trying to control chaos and then organizing it into something presentable. As we near our Dec. 12th date much of what we've been working on is now coming together. Our project this year is so awesome. We've spent a lot of time in research and have interviewed four experts with a fifth lined up. I'm hoping the judges will be blown away. The team has done a

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West: The robot can pick up the blue loop, the gray loop, and the three loops consistently every time but still has to pick up the next gray loop yet. End (east): Robot performs every thing consistently but the ending turns still need to be tweaked. T2: First two loops grabbed consistently but brown still needs work.

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Yesterday as part of our research project we took a field trip down to the Thompson Center in Chicago to interview Secretary of State Jesse White. Secretary White is a remarkable man with a life long list of accomplishments-- any one of which would be sufficient for one life time. The Secretary was very gracious and has a real love for kids. We had an appointment for one hour with him but he

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I ran across this bit of wisdom while browsing the Projects section of the FLL forums. I thought it was worth passing on. The research assignment this year is beautiful in its ambiguity. Through careful selection of the community you can make almost any topic fit into the project guidelines. As long as you do all parts of the research assignment it would be unfair for the judges to mark you down

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I ran across this little nugget from Dave Parker on the FLL forums. As a judge, I would like to hear more than "Bill made that one, and Sue made this one" from the kids, and hopefully also more than "This one has a light sensor, this one doesn't". I might ask "Why use the one without the light sensor, since it can also count motor degrees?". There may be practical answer, but I want to make sure

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 (for me at least) :)  

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There are a couple kids on our team that have repeatedly commented that this years missions are easy. I agree the individual missions are easy but getting to them isn't.  I spotted this comment on the FLL forums and thought it was worthy of a bump. As someone who has been involved since the beginning, I believe this year's challenge is the best ever for the real goal of the competition:

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Most of our team has seen this video but it still stands as an excellent example of team strategy and robot navigation. Notice how little time the robot spends in base and how often it realigns itself with the sides of the table. Very smart!  

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Embedded video from CNN Video

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Time to get busy!Click here for all the details. 

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Last fall I extended an invitation to a young lady to join our team and even though it looked like a sure thing sometimes circumstances come up. So as that door closed another one opened and I had an opportunity to observe two young men that show tremendous promise. After talking at length with their parents about the commitments of being involved in FLL I extended an offer to the boys.We are now

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I was reading the FLL forums and ran across this link about Lego Guards, an FLL team from California, who were selected to go to Copenhagen Denmark and present their project idea. Of all the teams invited, Lego Guards was selected to have their project developed.The Forest Guard team flew to Basingstoke to meet with Sony engineers and Director of Research and Development, Morgan David, to further

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It's been a couple months since our trip to Ohio to the U.S. Open and it's felt good to decompress and relax a little after an intense rookie year. My wife and I have run in to the our team members at church and 4-H events over the summer. They've grown taller. Watching our kids see their team mates has been fun--it's like a family reunion with all the chatter and they just pickup where ever they

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Arrived at the Nutter Center a little after 8:00 a.m. to snag time at the pit to get ready for our first table run at 9:05. Unfortunately so did everyone else. Oh well.The robot isn't running as well as we'd like but we're hanging in there. First and third runs didn't go so well but our second is run is a respectable 230. It looks like we'll finish somewhere in the 30's for ranking. Still hoping

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We arrived at the Wright State University Student Union at 9:00 am for our presentation, technical, and teamwork judging. The entire tournament has been organized with military-like precision. (gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with the airforce base that's here?) Our judging sessions were lined up to coordinate with our team alliance partners (other FLL teams) and all three sessions were

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All three families have arrived and are checked into the motel. Team check in for the tournament is in 20 minutes.Update from Jake:This morning I woke up at 4:30 AM to get on the road by 5:30 AM.......and yes we left on time!!!!! now just a 6 hour car trip to Dayton. During the trip I did some schoolwork, we cached and ate food. Just as we were about to exit we noticed that the exit was being

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Alarm went off. Time to get the kids up and get ready to leave.

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Getting ready...Robot? CheckBattery? CheckLaptop? CheckPresentation and gear? CheckUnderwear? Oops! (better pack that too!)We're leaving at the crack of dawn. Google maps says it's a 5-1/2 hour trip. We'll see.There's going to be a ton of activity tomorrow after check in. Everybody's going to sleep well tomorrow night.Friday is go-time for our judging. We'll be done by noon. Prayers and

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This is a picture of us from our state tournament posing with our 3rd Place Champions Award. Stay tuned to see if we have anything new in our photo from the U.S. Open Championships. (crossing fingers)

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got robot? had a tough night Saturday. Sometimes we forget the little things. We get comfortable and take shortcuts. Eventually the shortcuts become routine and before we know it we've forgotten the details--all the really small stuff that can make or break you when push comes to shove.We got lucky though. We found out before it was too late. By running competition simulations of the table run--

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As the date for our competition draws near we need to be mindful of the FLL Values we recited the day we formed our team.FLL CORE VALUESWe are a team.We do the work to find 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 other.We display gracious professionalism* in

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got robot? had a tremendous practice Monday evening. After struggling for several weeks with a buggy robot and programs Monday's practice produced huge results.Following a long weekend of chassis and program refinements by two team members got robot? was able to spend their entire practice concentrating on perfecting the robot game. Out of 16 table runs the robot scored an average of 267 points

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Post Event News Release from USFIRST.orgATLANTA –April 18, 2009 – Twenty-thousand spectators, students, mentors, volunteers, sponsors, and FIRST supporters gathered over the weekend to experience the ultimate celebration of science and technology that ignites students’ scientific savvy in three levels of Championship competitions. Teams from California, Illinois, and Michigan emerged victorious

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We just got an email informing us that Illinois FLL Team Steele just received the 2nd Place Champions Award at World Fest in Atlanta, GAWay to go!!!

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Ya know? I got to thinking about all that has happened this year and the parents and people behind the scenes that have supported us.  Now that I have a soap box I'll make it public.Thank you Sue R. for the countless team press releases, advice, encouragement, and fundraising. You rock!!Thank you Dave R. for the the awesome t-shirts, encouragement, and team goodies. Thank you Dan and Leesa U. for

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A lot has happened since we first met in September.Our team of 5 FLL rookies has had one crazy year. After much pizza, sweat and tears our team made it through the Lake Zurich regional tournament in December and won the Judges Choice Award which qualified us for the Illinois State tournament in January.Christmas and New Years fell in between our regional and state tournament and didn't leave us

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Well I did it! I've been reading 'em for years but finally decided to take the plunge myself. The blog title is the chosen name of our rookie FLL team. The kids picked it and I kinda like it. My wife and I have 6 kids on the team. What a smart bunch. Can't wait to see them strut their stuff at the tournament on Dec. 13.I'll see if I can get a summary and some pictures up of the past couple weeks.

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