One of the best parts of the LEGOLAND trip was hanging out at the clubhouse. In addition to building birthday cakes, we took advantage of the buy one pound get 1/2 pound free Pick-A-Brick. We bought 3 POUNDS of bricks! Connor and Austin had fun picking a random assortment of bricks while I chose to get the bricks I would need to make this, my first mosaic (although it turned out I didn't get quite enough yellow 1 X 1 plates, doh!) We also had the pleasure of meeting and building with a LEGOLAND model designer and master builder, Gary McIntire.

I love LEGOLAND :-)

Took a break from my hectic delivery schedule on The Mist to take my family to LEGOLAND. We had a great time, the boys picked up their membership cards, we saw the new Vegas in miniland, built birthday cakes for the 20th anniversary of the LEGO club and Connor rode his first rollercoaster, the Coastersaurus!

With luck, we'll be walking through these gates in December to compete in Power Puzzle!

I've uploaded the model videos on YouTube

And we're off!

The season kick off and build party was fantastic. All team members we here and we had a great time. We finished ALL the models! This year is definitely going to be a challenge, that's for sure. not only can we not figure out what half the models are for, we don't even know where they go on the table. Many thanks to all the parents who came today and helped out.


Our first official meeting will be Sept 5 for the unveiling of the Power Puzzle challenge. But we may have another informal get-together once we get the garage transformed into FLL central.

Team members log into the member area to check it out. let me know what you think and feel free to make suggestions to make it better.

Let's get busy!

We're kicking off the season this sunday! From noon to 4 we'll have a pizza and build party. We'll start putting together the challenge models and talk about FLL.. Parents, please join us (at least for a little bit) to learn about what will expected of you and your child this season. If you want to bring something to share feel free.

See you sunday!

The links button works again, oops :-)

It's here!

The 2007 challenge kit arrived today, and it looks very cool!

Got word from LEGO Education that the field setup kit shipped today! Earlier than I expected but no biggie, we'll have to plan a season kick-off/build party soon!

Still waiting to hear from some members, you know who you are.

Hey FLL fans! It's been a bit quiet around here, but it is the off season after all. No real news to report, I'm busy at work and we just got back from our summer vacation. It's definitely getting close to time to ramp up though. Pretty soon the table will come out, the crates will open up and it's First LEGO League time again!

Team members and potential members, it's time to start thinking about committing to the team. Austin is in, I hear Morgan and Dane are in, I'm pretty sure Rawley is in, but I need to hear from you all. Give me a call, reply to this post just stop by the house and let me know you are ready for some frantic LEGO robotic action.

I'll also give you your username and password to the member's only page.

I'll also be updating the website over the next few weeks so keep your eyes peeled for changes.

The history button now works and I've put together a synopsis of season 2006, NanoQuest. I've also added a sponsors page.

Members chime in!
I'm just curious if any team members of Bricks For Brains are checking the site from time to time. If you are, comment this post (click comment right below this)

I've spoken to a few of you, and new members are inquiring about joining, we should have a great team this year. Morgan has said she's in, Dane's in, Rawley's in, Austin will be in and I've spoken to "little" Austin and he's thinking about it. If you are interested or have any questions comment to this post.

Whoa, what happened?
As you can see, the site has gone through some changes. It's not at all done yet, in fact only two of the navigation buttons work. Stay tuned for more changes.

We're back!

I registered for the 2007 season Power Puzzle on Friday. We are team 547. I'm sure most (if not all) members will be returning from last season and I know of at least one addition. We're also planning a JFLL team for some of the little brothers and sisters. If you have any questions get in touch with me. I'm looking forward to another exciting season of LEGO robotics!

Post season wrap up
Well, with our little party to close this season of FLL I am prepared to call this season over. We had a great little BBQ get-together at the Erland house (thanks for hosting Mimi and Eric!) the kids all got custom embroidered Bricks for Brains jackets and some little LEGO sets.

I want to say thanks to everyone for an excellent season. Eric, you were a great help and assistant coach. Alan, you were an excelent mentor. Dianna, thanks for letting us take over the garage. Austin, you helped write an fantastic project and always kept your team smiling. Dane, you have the mad building skills. Morgan, you were a great help to your team and an excellent operator. Jaime, your project idea was top notch and you were great programmer. Rawley, you have the right stuff, I'm pleased to name you MVP.

Special thanks to our sponsors Larry Perry and Double Density Software, John Lizarraga and Aceco, Hisel Brown, and Mike Fischer. Thank you all for helping our team out.

We'll see you at the next FLL challenge, Power Puzzle!

Whew! What a weekend :-)
The team is back home again, with quite a story to tell. We arrived at LEGOLAND a total underdog. A first-year team nobody had heard of. We flew in under radar and took 2nd place right under their noses! I'm very proud of my team. I can't go into too much detail but here's the rough account of the day...

We arrived Saturday morning at the park early and took some time to practice the presentation script (Dane, what's your next line?) After entering the park we found our pit attendant and he showed us to our table. We set up base camp and waited for our very short turn at the practice table. After that the kids went before the judges with their robot and presentation. Alan, Eric and I were a bit surprised that we couldn't so much as watch them. After what was apparently a good presentation (it's so hard to get an accurate story out of a 10 year old) we had lunch and saw a bit of the park. Then it was zero hour, time for the mission challenge. After a somewhat disappointing first run we were still in 18th place and really happy about it. Top half was good for us! Then came the second run, and it was picture perfect. We scored 341 points and found ourselves in second place! Not only that but only 5 points behind the leader and well ahead of third place. The third run went alright, but the atom challenge proved difficult. After the last table challenge we loaded all the stuff back in the van and saw some more of the park while we waited for the awards presentation. Not knowing how the scoring was done we went in to the awards ceremony with no expectations at all. We knew we did good at the table, but didn't know how that factored in to the awards. When it got down to just 4 trophies left it wasn't looking too good but then came the award for second place for robot performance and we heard the words “I am told this year’s team is a first year team, first time they’ve done it,(oohs and ahs were heard) so it’s always impressive to see a first year team do so well in performance. And they seem to be doing particularly well considering they have bricks for brains”. We went berserk! They took the stage and accepted their trophy with wide grins. I was smiling the rest of the day, very proud of them. Check out the pictures from the day on the gallery page.

WE WON!!!
Yes, the small 5 member rookie team from Lompoc took second place for robot performance today at LEGOLAND! I'll post more details and pictures at a later date, but I had to share. I couldn't be more proud, you rock team!!!

Last meeting tonight! It's been a long journey, but the end is near. Tomorrow we hit the road to LEGOLAND, ready or not. Tonight we will have our last meeting before the tournament. We will practice our research project, practice the table, tweak some programs and put some finishing touches on everything. We have had a great time and on Saturday we find out how we stack up against the rest of the teams out there.

Less than one week!
We've had a couple really good meetings. On saturday we had some trial runs at the field with a timer and were able to complete most of the tasks we have programmed. Still no program for the probe, but we have something for everything else. We have also worked hard on our project. Yesterday's meeting was a bit of a wash out, with not much to show for it at the end, but there was one significant event. While discussing our project Morgan paused a moment and said "wow, nano technology is going to affect so many aspects of our lives". I knew then that we had accomplished our objective. The kids are learning, they're getting excited about science and technology. And they are having fun (well, most of the time).

We still have a LOT to do this week and we're meeting every night. Come Friday, we have what we have and we're heading to LEGOLAND. Hopefully we'll make some great progress this week. Regardless we'll have a great time and these rookies (yours truly included) are going to see and learn a lot.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
There's light at the end of the tunnel (wait..is that a train?) We've made some significant progress in all areas. Our big to-do list is getting checked off at an alarming rate. We really only one week left for practice, everyone will be on the road next Friday heading for LEGOLAND (so exciting!) Luckily we have a 4 day weekend so we can really make some progress.

Our project is almost ready to go, just need to polish the script and rehearse it, make our presentation board and finish the props. We have most of the table challenges worked out. The fabric and motor challenges are proving tricky just from a reliability standpoint. We could program it very easily if the robot would just go to the same place twice in a row! We haven't even started programming the atom table yet, that one is definately going to seperate the rookies from the pros.

Time is running out. The team is making some real progress now. Every meeting we are scratching things off our big "to-do" board. We have adopted a single challenge strategy. Our first attempts at multiple challenges per program proved to be frustrating. After we have a solid (mostly) program for all the challenges we may go back and try to combine some.