We're In!!!

I just got confirmation from LEGOLAND that we made the wildcard cut! We'll be competing there in December. Congratulation team, it's going to be an awesome time.

This weekend meeting will be a little earlier than usual, we'll start at 2:00PM. We might actually go longer than usual if everyone is into it.

Great meeting!

We made some great progress on the house challenge, thanks in no small part to some inspiration provided by our new friends in Denmark, NXT Generation. We also made some improvements to existing attachments and made a little progress on the project.

As a reminder team members, this Wednesday's meeting will be all-project, and next weekend's meeting will likely not take place because of the Halloween Bash!

Due to the number of team members receiving awards this Wednesday night (congratulations!) we will be moving this week's meeting to Thursday, 7:00-8:30

Good meeting last night team. We made some good progress programming and it was great to see everyone working hard. I've uploaded some pictures of the team working, here's a link to them


I also wanted to share this picture of our team with our friends in Denmark, team NXT Generation. Visit the link above to see our team working and learn our names.

Uh Oh!
I just found out this morning that in order to compete at LEGOLAND this year we need to compete at a qualifying tournament. The closest QT I can find is in Camarillo on Sunday November 16th from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Since it's so early we have to decide if we're going down Saturday night and staying the night or getting up VERY early on Sunday morning to be there on time (it's about 2 hours south). The deadline for registering is Oct 19 so we have to decide what we are doing very soon. Capacity for the QT is 24-32 teams and about half will move on to Championship tournaments. We'll have to register for LEGOLAND and this QT at the same time. If we do well at the QT then maybe we will get accepted at LEGOLAND. I have sent mail to the organizer to see if there are any slots still available.

There is also a QT at Six Flags Magic Mountain the same day, but the costs will be much higher. this is the website http://www.placeritajhs.org/placeritatech/FLL_Tournament/RoboticsTournament.html We'll have to discuss this.

This means we have about 6 weeks to prepare for our first tournament! We need to get our project in order, we need to start programming, we need to figure out our mission order, we need to build attachments, we need to do a LOT of stuff.

Last night's meeting was a bit of a wash. You all need to get way more motivated if we're ever going to be close to ready. All I can do is guide you, I can't make you want to learn or succeed.

Hello Team NXT Generation!

We would like to send a big shout out to our new friends in Denmark, FLL Team NXT Generation! We are sharing information with them on our projects and learning about each other's countries and communities. Visit their website here. http://nxtgeneration.dk (click the red white and blue flag on the lower left to read in English)

FANTASTIC MEETING!

I can't believe we started this meeting with a partially built chassis and ended with our first programmed challenge! We still have a long way to go but it's so great we're past this first threshold.

Team members, for the project we need you to visit this site and learn about rising sea levels in California. Click this link

As a reminder, the meeting this Saturday will be from 3:00-5:30

Good meeting team.

We had some great ideas for the project, I like where this is going.

Here's your homework:

1. Name of someone to contact (and their contact info) regarding climate change. For instance fireman, meteorologist, etc.

2. 3-4 questions regarding climate change (i.e. what are you curious about, is there something you don't understand?)

3. Any "new or different" scientific idea to explain climate change. For instance lost socks, bubblegum air, dorito dust.

At the table we need to get our chassis locked and our missions started. The clock is ticking, we need to make some progress.

Saw this post on Gizmodo, though it interesting and applies to our theme this year.

I know all of you guys aren't visiting the website regularly. But I want to reward the ones that are. The first person at a meeting to use the code phrase "Red brick plus blue brick equals not enough bricks" will win a LEGO prize.

In other news FLL has posted some Q&A rulings. They have added several notes on the table that will help us and clarifies some setup. Check them out here.

That's more like it!

Last night's meeting was WAY better. Busy bodies building bots!

As we discussed last night our new weekend meeting time is Saturdays 4:30-7:00.

See you then!

THANK YOU DAWN!!!

One of our past sponsors, Dawn Williams (aunt of Austin, Morgan and Rawley) has once again made a generous donation to the team. Thank you so very much!

The meeting yesterday was interesting. As an experiment I decided not to give specific directions to any of the team members. The results: almost nothing was accomplished (at least on the surface). Granted we were several team members shy yesterday, so I didn't expect us to make much progress, but still...

Team members, you need to start taking an active role. It's easy enough for me to say "connect this to that" and then "no, make it bigger, like this" but what is really happening then? The results are me building a robot with someone else's hands. I want you to create it. I know it's daunting, I know some of the challenges are mind boggling, but it's supposed to be. Expect it not to work the first time, or the second, or the eighth time. That's part of inventing, that's part of designing. In my tinkering yesterday I went through 4 different chassis configurations, none of which worked very well. That doesn't mean I failed 4 times, I just discovered 4 ways not to build a robot for this challenge (yes, I'm plagiarizing Edison :-)

Some good did come out of the meeting, nick experimented with Technic building, and whether he knew it or not he was learning about the mathematics of LEGO, stored energy, inertia and kinetics. Austin did some experimenting with mounting a ultrasonic sensor, and discovered at least 3 ways not to do it. Connor learned about drag and friction. And of course we spent some time talking about the project and learning about climate changes. So we're accomplishing something, you guys are learning.

I'd also like to say thanks former team member Morgan for hanging out with us yesterday. It was great having you around again, even if only for a visit.

This weekend's meeting will be on Sunday, 2-5.

I ordered a rechargeable battery for the NXT today. They're a bit pricy so I only picked up one and a charger for now. We'll give it a go and see how it works. It will pay for itself in a couple seasons and it allows us to build our robot in such a way that we don't have to worry about removing the NXT. All we need to do is make sure the buttons and display are clear and we can access the charger port.

Hey Team,

I thought this video was pretty cool, and pretty inspiring.

Excellent first meeting team!

Well, we certainly have our work cut out for us. Some of these challenges are pretty strait forward, some are absolutely baffling. But they'll all be fun to figure out. Please try to visit this website often for updates and news. And if you aren't on the mailing group already, give me your email and I'll invite you.

Everyone remember your homework, visit your assigned website and report back on Wednesday with your findings. Give some thought to the climate of the central coast, what other problems can we identify?

Also, think about who might make a good addition to the team, we have up to 2 more slots if you know someone interested in science and technology.

Nick and Forrest, welcome to the team.

Meeting Change

Although the challenge details are being released this Friday, we're going to have our first meeting on Sunday from 2:00-5:00. This day works better for more schedules. That doesn't mean you have to wait to look at the challenge details though. Log in to the FLL site after 9:00AM on Friday and check out what we have in store for us (you can bet I'll be there at 8:59!). I'll make sure the field is fully set up before the meeting. We'll have snacks and drinks.

See you Sunday!

James Kelly from The NXT Step was kind enough to send me his and Jonathan Daudelin's new book First LEGO League. I know that we get a lot of visitors here and I thought I'd post a mini review.

This book is awesome! I wish that it was available 3 years ago when we formed our team. Even with 2 seasons under my belt I still learned a ton from it and I feel better prepared for the upcoming season. The book covers nearly everything you need to know, from finding members and forming a team to building and programming a robot. It covers all four aspects of FLL with enough detail to be informative, but not so much that it becomes cumbersome. There's even little stories and anecdotes from real teams sprinkled throughout. This book is a wealth of information and is the perfect compliment to the official coach's guide provided by FIRST. It also gives some great insight from a judge's perspective.

If you are an FLL coach, team member, mentor or parent you NEED this book!

The challenge details will be released next Friday. We'll have our first meeting and brainstorming session that day, Sept 5th. I've added that date to the member calendar. In other news, team mentor Alan introduced me to a potential new member, Nick. Hopefully he wants to join us this year and will be at the meeting.

Good news!

My wife Dianna has generously donated her old Toshiba laptop for team use. After some clean up and optimization (and a new desktop image of course) I installed the NXT software this morning and tested it. It works great! I still have to test bluetooth with it (need to get the dongle from the Rowes) but I'm pretty sure it will work fine.

We have a small, portable programming station now.

Build party 2008

I was a great party everyone, thanks for coming! I've uploaded some pictures from yesterday, head on over and check them out.

Build party 2008

Our season is officially underway. We won't know what the challenge or the project is for another month or so, but we have some general ideas of what's ahead. I'd like to welcome our newest member Forest. Unfortunately Austin and Morgan won't be back this year, we're going to miss them.