Friday, September 28, 2007

It's been a while since I've updated. I've been really busy and work, then sick, then really busy at work again.

Things are moving right along with the team. We've worked out some pretty sound plans for several of the challenges but there are a few that still remain a mystery. The corn and uranium challenge was being over-thought, that's for sure. Rawley worked out the Dam mission with little trouble, and Morgan has a great solution for the Satellite. We can hopefully do some programming on Sunday for the Solar panel. The project however needs to get going. Like last year we're so excited and focussed on the table that we're ignoring the project, and we can't put it off as long as we did last year.

I also have some bad news, because of her commitments elsewhere Jamie has decided to drop out of FLL. We wish her the best and we'll miss her, and hope she returns next year.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Hey Team,

I ordered a new book that will help us out when it comes to the more complex programming, it's also loaded with ideas for building with NXT. It's from the guys at The NXT Step blog and looks very cool.

I also ordered the 1.1 upgrade for Mindstorms and NXT-G, it should help with lots of bug fixes and better memory management (who can forget our last minute panic attack when we went to load all of our programs last year...OUT OF MEMORY!?!?!)

Thanks again to our sponsors for helping make these purchases possible!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Two great meetings in a row! We are so far ahead of where we were last year at this time. I think it was at least a month before we had anything resembling a capable robot. This year we're reconfigured it 3 times and all three have been usable. All the team members are getting into it (OK, some with a little more prodding than others) and everyone seems to be having a good time, myself included.

Remember team, this Sunday's meeting is canceled because we are having Connor's birthday party.

I'd also like to send a big shout out to Dawn Williams, our newest sponsor. Dawn is Rawley, Austin and Morgan's aunt. Thank you for your generous donation!

Friday, September 07, 2007

We had a good presentation for the Lompoc Rotary this morning. We arrived at 6:45 for breakfast and after the Rotary meeting we gave a presentation on FLL and our team. The Rotary members seemed to enjoy it and we had fun showing off our NXT and trophy from last year's tournament. I'd like to say thanks to Austin, Dane and Rawley for getting up so early to share our organization and to John and Eric for helping out.

After the meeting I spoke briefly with the president and he said we may be able to arrange some Rotary sponsorship next year, that would be awesome!

Thanks for having us Lompoc Rotary and thanks to Dick Jones for inviting us.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Great first meeting team. This year looks to be more challenging than last year but it also looks like it will be a lot of fun. Remember to visit the FLL website and read about the challenge and project so we can discuss it on Sunday.