Astronomy Days

If you are interested in First Lego League, come see our demonstration on Saturday, January 24, 2009 noon –5 pm and Sunday, January 25, noon–5 pm at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. We will be there on Saturday and the Spacebots will be there on Sunday. If you stop by on Sunday, say hello to Coach Kyle Brown. Tell him that we sent you :-) The museum holds a First Lego League demo every year during Astronomy Days.

The NC Rookie Challenge

The NC State tournament was actually two tournaments: the NC State Championship and the NC State Rookie Challenge. In the NC State Rookie Challenge, only rookie teams could win. The NC State Championship was held in December while the Rookie Challenge was held January 10th. We volunteered to help out with the second tournament since we could not compete in it and frankly, we still haven't gotten enough of First Lego League.

We saw some very impressive rookie teams including The Barracudas, a team that built a folk lift robot, and won 1st place for their Innovative Design. It was unlike any other robot that we have ever seen. Clark noticed it first and said “Wow – I don’t think that we could have built something like that our first year!”

Another rookie team, Mechanical Mayhem, pulled a 235 on the robot challenge. They were a home schooled team and we asked Coach Brown (of the Spacebots) about how much time they had put into getting such a high score (and learning NXT/G). He said, “Probably as much time as you did.” They won two trophies (Robot Performance and Robot Quality) their first year! Unreal! I know it is the rookie challenge but they could have gotten third place on the table with that score in the State Championship! How about that?

Another impressive rookie team was The Charlie Bytes. We had talked to them about possibly helping them out during the season as they said that they felt that they were having trouble. We could never find a time that worked out. No trouble there except for other teams! They won a first place trophy.

Finally, we met Chris of the Magellan Mariners (see Brush with Greatness) who had a video clip of our team and his in the alliance round on his phone. We were soooo small!

Marie Hopper and Tom Settle did a great job organizing this tournament! They have definitely become new friends of the Microbots. What a great day we had! Tad said, “I want to volunteer to help out with the Rookie Challenge again next year!”

FLL Competition Day

Hi this is Tad. On Saturday morning I woke up at 7:00 at the Greensboro Embassy Suittes. My dad had the wrong time and thought it was only 6:30! So mom hurried me out of bed and I felt like a race car in the pit that morning. Because I woke up late, I was forced to get dressed immediately and then, I was rushed downstairs to try to eat some breakfast. That morning I did not eat much, I was too excited.. After taking a couple bites of my ham omelet, I was rushed with the team to the car. It was also really freezing outside, below 30! Then we got to competition. It was at the Greensboro Colliseum. The FLL State Championship!

The first thing we did was lots of serious practice on the robot runs. Suddenly, it was already time for the Technical Interview at 8:40 am! It went really well and everyone had something to say. After technical we still were tweaking our programs and had another practice. Then we had our favorite part, the Presentation, which went super great! I can't wait to see the video that Mr. Ivers took. Still tweaking our programs, we had another practice. Then we had the Team Building exercise and, at the end the judge said we nailed it. We were so happy! Then we had our last practice on our robot runs which was actually on the table that we would be running the robot for real on.

After lunch in Mr. Whipkers van (Subway outside!) we started running the robot for real. Our first run, which went very good, gave us the most points. We then watched the other homeschool teams the Spacebots and the Technoalliance and cheered them on alot. The second run, which was not as great as the first one, did not give us any more points. And the last run gave us little I think 220 points. But the judges seemed very happy with us also and talked alot to everyone, said it was great that we tried the house. We were the only team that attempted to do the house. We had so much fun and I wanted to stay on the floor much longer! It goes by so fast.

After all the robots runs were done, we had 30 minutes to play, relax, snack, and have fun with everyone. Then, the award ceremony started. The award ceremony took forever to introduce everyone. There were so MANY teams! Every team that competed got cool medals and I think Rebekah or Zach asked if we could get some extra medals for the coaches too. The Microbots finally got called out to parade in, and the team carried me in holding the sign that Mrs. Medina made! Everyone cheered and I could see our family and friends doing our silly Manamanama "team song". It was so great!

Finally, it was time to get to the special FLL trophies. We were all so nervous. At one point, Patrick said he was almost sure we would get a trophy in robot runs because we were second after Magellan in points. Then all the sudden the team started standing up and I was thinking "What are they doing?" then Patrick said we won a trophy for robot runs. I did not even hear the judges call us. We were so happy! Magellan won the first place for robot runs with their amazing score.

After they gave us that 2nd place trophy for robot performance, we were going to get a some pictures taken in the back stage area. But then suddenly, one of the judges came out of nowhere and said to us and the picture people "I really think they could get the pictures taken later, you guys should go back to the award ceremony right away". We knew the awards were almost done. Only maybe one or two to go, and then the FLL NC State Championship Award! So then I was so super excited that we maybe would win something else? Maybe another trophy for the Microbots? We went running like crazy back to our spot on the floor.

After about 10 minutes of awarding more trophies, they got to the BIG one. Then the judges announced 2nd place of the whole competition. It was all a big blur. I could not breathe. Then the judges said they said first place goes to the team who made a website, had business cards, designed a Lego Water-Efficient house defined the Core Values so well and my heart was racing like crazy. We were all clutching each other! Then they said this award goes to: Team 262, The Microbots!! Then I sprang up and ran with my team mates to get that big trophy! It was the most cool moment ever.

They took lots and lots of official pictures with our team, and then we all took lots of other pictures with our friends and our family. We could not believe it. I still can't believe it. We really did it! We won the FLL State Championhip! We are the Champions! Saturday was the best day ever of my life! It was a such a great year. I though sometimes I would burst from everything we learned from studying climate connections and from all those late nights at the Spains! Most of all though, we always had so much fun with our great coaches and our great team. Our families worked so hard to help us have the time to really go the distance on our project. Our coaches never gave up on us even though we had some very hard times. It was all worth it. I would do it again and work even harder if I had to.

Saturday ended and we all went back to the hotel with the whole team and had a little party and another team, known as the Spacebots came and joined us. Mr. Jared came and brought us some special dinner in the crock pot. We even ordered pizza and chinese food. We were all so tired and so happy. Thank you to everyone for your help this year. We have so many awesome people to thank that helped us and guided us this year in Cary and in Brisbane. Thank you MICROBOTS you are the best. Thank you Coach Medina and Coach Whipker for always believeing in us and challenging us to finish our work. Thank you daddy, Coach Miller. I love you. I can't wait to see what we will decide to do next. I think 2009 will be a very special year!

Priceless

About a year ago to date an email went out to all the Microbot families warning them to start packing for Atlanta as their beloved children were showing strong signs of being able to win their FLL state championship.

With only two years of experience the children were fixed on getting started almost as soon as the 2007 season was over. They started working in late January to early February of 2008 and never looked back. They researched, studied, programmed, took courses at their local community college and put in a lot of their time, and not to mention their parents, coaches and siblings time as well.

The end result to this year Climate Connection topic? A second place trophy for robotic performance, an award rightly given due to the fact that they ranked #2 throughout the entire tournament. Their interviews for Team work, Technical and Research were all solid and well performed. So as awards were continued to be announced and handed throughout the evening it came down to the last two. The 1st and second place Champion award trophy for overall performance.
The end result............The Microbots took first place.

While one might ask or jest at how such a group of young children lead up to winning a first place trophies three consecutive years, plus an overall Champion award on their third year? The secret in fact is no secret at all. Hard work is the proven tried and true method of success.

This was not a right to win but earned through the time given to perfect and make right.
In the end, just one day removed from this momentus day for all our children there is only one thing this dad can say.
Three years, 2 first place trophies a second place robotic performance and a Champion award............PRICELESS!!!

Coach Medina

The Last Week Rush

Okay, only 2 more days before our North Carolina State Championship competition, and we have suffered from what I call "Last week rush." The last week rush is where you have still not completed everything that you wanted to complete and are now attempting (with only a few days left) to finish it all. Nerves are breaking, sleep is being lost, and tempers are flaring. This has happened to us the last two seasons, and in our first year, we where still solving challenges the night before! Our goal this year was to make a 400 run by November 1 and then do Time trials up until competition. Well, it's 2 days before competition, we are doing time trials, but with a 385 point run that was completed just yesterday. It's hard to finish beforehand, I admit, but it saves everyone a whole lot of headaches, and you actually look forward to competeing, and don't feel so burnt out. Sometimes I guess, you have to take what's given to you, and make the best of it, but man, will I be glad when this last minute stress is over! Can't wait for Saturday!

How To Successfully Coach a FLL Team

Our robot affectionately named Robbie has crashed. The left button is now stuck on even though it is brand new. As a result, it cycles through the menus and will not run our completed programs. I am sure it is still under warrantee but it is two weeks until competition and our backup robot runs the programs differently.

So what is a coach to do? Two weeks until competition and all of the programs have to be rebuilt? Coach Medina and I have become accomplished ping pong players. At first, he beat me regularly but I have started to "give him a game". Since the Microbots do the work, we lamented over Robbie and buried him (sent him back to the manufacturer). Then we got back to our ping pong games as any third year coach would do.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going! We coaches played some our best ping pong games. Coach Medina is up two games to one at the present time. There was a time when I couldn't win. Meanwhile, the Microbots are back to the drawing board. Doing what they always do.

Growth and Learning....

FIRST LEGO League is all about the kids – learning, applying what was learned, growing and having fun. But as our State Competition draws near and we enter Thanksgiving week (also known among the Microbots as Microbot Bootcamp week), as all the kids and coaches and parents get ready for the last push of a very intense fall, and as we all just keep saying “we just need to hold on until December 7th and then we can sleep” it’s good to step back and look at what the year’s been about.

I’ve been especially amazed by the growth in the kids this year. What they’ve accomplished this year on all fronts they couldn’t have even dreamed of last year – or come close to even imagining their first year in FLL!

We’ve seen the growth physically – from deepening voices to acne breakouts, bigger feet, kids who can look me in the eyes, the need for deodorant, and brains that shut off and fall asleep as their bodies focus on growing.

We seen growth in general knowledge and learning – huge leaps in skills in robot engineering and design, programming, researching, and writing; learning new skills like website design and survey development; conquering computer applications like PowerPoint, Word, Photoshop, and Kompozer; making full use of online tools like SurveyMonkey, NING, Noodlebib, Writeboard and Lego Digital Designer (whose capacity really maxes out with a 3000 piece design set).

There has been huge growth in team work – understanding how to brainstorm positively, how to communicate as a team online, by phone, and in person throughout the week, week after week, how each individual piece of the puzzle has to fit together to make a much bigger whole, how to work individually, in pairs, in threes, and as an entire group, how to fill in for each other when things fall apart, how “Noob” may be a positive phrase or a negative phrase.

In the specific research project they’ve chosen, they’ve also grown in long term more intangible knowledge and skills – how small the world really is as they watched their website statistics count up the visitors from state after state to continent after continent, how they can make a difference globally as people responded about water issues from all parts of the globe, how they can write emails to large, anonymous websites for permission to use photos and get real people answering them with positive encouragement and enthusiasm, how they can talk to state legislators about different issues and have them listen.

And in long term individual organizational skills, they’ve each learned a lot this year about how important the tiny details are in research and programming, how to push on when they get tired, how to follow through to the end after deciding to aim extremely high in both research and programming, how to keep going the direction they need to head despite the differing opinions of the coaches, and how to work with deadline after deadline in an almost overwhelming process.

These kids are just 11, 12 and 13 but because of their team work, their spirit, and their unflagging friendship and desire to work and play together day after day, week after week, they have the (almost always!) unflagging support of 12 parents and 8 tag-along siblings as they keep moving forward. I doubt that any of the parents or coaches could keep up the pace if it wasn’t for the desire, the growth, and the huge benefits we see that these 6 kids gain from each other and the FLL projects. Growth can be painful, frustrating and hard sometimes but it can also be a beautiful thing to watch and be a part of!

Now… to just push on for the next 2 weeks to try to get everything done before competition…!!!!

Mrs. W (Research Coach)