Wisdom from a veteran Coach

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. Judges should be expecting some wacky ideas this year.

You should pick a topic you are really interested in and will have fun researching and presenting. If you have fun and learn something you are a big winner, regardless of what the judge says.

The only reason to get a high score in FLL is to have another opportunity to compete. If you aren't having any fun this isn't much of a motivator... ...The plaques and trophies they (my team) have won are getting dusty in storage somewhere. The excitement of winning only lasted a short time, as does the disappointment of losing. But the friends you make and the fun you have is what makes the program worthwhile. That is why my team competes year after year. -- Dean Hystad

Insights from a technical judge

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 the kids are on top of it.

I have judged at the state and WF (World Festival) levels, and listened in on many judging sessions at the local/qualifier level, and I would also add that in general, at the lower levels (e.g. qualifying tournament), design judges are interested in stuff you haven't finished yet (even attachments that are in progress), but at the higher levels, it moves to more of just what the final robot can do.

Having said that, at WF last year, one team showed me two robots, one of which was a redesign since winning their state championship, which was designed to go faster in an attempt to get more done in the time limit. After putting a lot of work into it, they still couldn't get it to score any higher than their original slower one, so they ran that one, but I was impressed that they tried and were able to explain the whys.

Okay, this is really cool! - video works now

Coaching FLL is like...

 (for me at least) :)


 

Easy huh? Prove it.

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: making successful autonomous robots... I think the rest of the problems are very good. And if there are more 400's, so what?... I think the top robots will be the best that we have ever seen. There is a much more realistic feel to everything. There are few items which can be scored by aiming. There are definite "zones" which have lots of things to do, but little benefit from multiple trips, meaning the robot has to be very flexible. In short, the best ever. The rules are the best ever as well... It is great! If you are new to this, enjoy it. It has taken 11 years to get this far.

Navigation

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!

 

Another reason to respect Dean Kamen

It's here! The challenge is released.

Time to get busy!

Click here for all the details. 

Growth

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 a team of seven. Rookies, Roger and Ryan, will join our team of five veterans for the 2009-2010 Smart Move season.

Congratulations and WELCOME!

Ideas From Anywhere

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 expand their ideas for the wildfire detection system including the development of software, servers and solar CCTV camera prototypes.

In this clip we follow the Forest Guard kids as they continue the development of their innovative wildfire detection system.