Colorado Springs Mini Maker Faire at Library 21C

Last weekend we hosted a booth at the Colorado Springs Mini Maker Faire. Thanks to all the familiar faces who showed up to support us. We love seeing alumni from our camps. Here are some photos from the day.

The Great Ball Contraption

Spin Art

Even the oldest kid wants to do some art.

Can I buy this kit?

Look I can draw a perfect circle!

Brickcon 2015 Adult LEGO Conference

Family portrait.

This past week, we attended the 14th Annual Brickcon Convention in Seattle, Washington. This was the first of its kind that we attended. In order to be part of the 4 day conference, you had to be 16 years old and this year, our in house LEGO expert turned 16 a few days ago! What an amazing event! Thursday and Friday were devoted to setting up My Own Creations (MOCs), attending talks and playing LEGO oriented games. One of the best parts was that after you played the games, you got to keep the sets. Games included Blind Build where you couldn't see the bricks, but you could see the instructions and Box Build where you just got a picture of the final product without any instructions. 

The great ball contraption.

One of the most intricate and largest MOCs.

One of the most interesting talks was from a former employee of Legoland who was a Masterbuilder. She used to work in the shop building models for display. Currently she has her own business, Model Building Secrets, and she is commissioned to build replicas of corporate buildings. It was fascinating to hear the different techniques to building these models as well as hear the outrageous requests some clients might have for building something out of LEGO bricks. We learned that even Masterbuilders just go to the regular LEGO stores or buy their items on Bricklink. No special treatment or discounts for those who build professionally. That's amazing because these folks literally buy a ton of bricks. One of Mariann's commissions cost $10,000!

Can you spot the helicopter flying around?

Finally there was a talk about the LEGO Ideas site. This is a forum where average people submit their builds on a website in order to possibly have LEGO manufacture your idea as their next kit. The geniuses at LEGO realize that 99% of their potential designers don't work for them. They have to look towards the public to help them generate the next big thing. If you build a MOC that gets 10,000 votes online, you will get a chance to see your build on a box after extensive review by the company. Many adult fans take this seriously and contribute lots of time and creativity to helping LEGO. 

Pano of the exhibit hall. Sat & Sun are public days. Kids allowed.

The BEST part of this convention was the experience of getting to see so many detailed, creative and well built MOCs. We now see what's possible to do with a bunch of bricks. 

Most impressed with this LEGO R2-D2
controlled by remote, complete
with the "beeps".

Enjoy more photos here.

Homemade LEGO Gifts

There's a lot of LEGO bricks lying around. Most can be found in my 15 year old son's bedroom. What can you do with all those spare parts? He decided years ago to start making presents for all the "occasions" in our lives. This was a good way to save money on buying presents too. Here are a few things he has made. We still display them on our mantle.

Model of the church we were married in. It was an adobe style church that seated about 250 people. This was made for our anniversary one year.

Closeup view as the bride and groom hold a very large ring. Pastor standing in the background.

This was a model of a heart that would tilt back and forth with the help of a rubber band in the back.

Photographer because I love taking pictures!

This is a runner breaking the finish line tape.

An everlasting rose for Mother's Day.

Birthday cake!

Mother's Day creation.

Don't leave out Dad!

What can you do with those spare LEGO bricks lying around? If you don't have the right parts, you can always supplement them by buying them ala carte at Bricklink.com.

No Spring Break Camp

Every year for the past 3 years, we've run a Spring Break camp. However, this year we thought we might not be able to. It was a gamble, but it was the best decision. The reason was because Jordan's robotics team was so strong this year, we thought they might get a chance to attend the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Super Regional tournamet held in Oakland, CA which happens right in the middle of Spring Break.

Synergists prepare to compete at CO State Championships.

This past Saturday (Feb 28), the team did exceptionally well and are going onto California! Since I'm a leader for this team, I'll take the trip with them. So we have less than a month to figure out logistics like travel, housing and food.

There's always lessons to be learned whenever you get a chance to compete in any sport. This day was a lesson in perseverance. At one point in the day, the team ranked as low as 12 out of 26 teams. The team members stayed calm and adjusted their strategy. Nobody got mad. Everyone pulled together and supported one another while creating such a positive atmosphere. Towards the end of the day, they pulled the highest scoring game in Colorado with a score of 418! That along with being chosen by another team to be their alliance partner gave our team a fighting chance. In the end, they helped the other team win the championship round. That got our team a ticket to Super Regionals! You can see the final rankings here.

Robot just finished dumping balls into the high goal.

We also found out later that we won 2nd Place Inspire Award. This was another avenue to the CA competition. We had it covered anyways, but it was so much fun to see the robot performing well.

So that's the long story of why there is no Spring Break camp this year!

How Do I Find an FLL LEGO Team to Join?

I get this question asked a lot. People who see this amazing program at work want to know how they can get their kids involved too.

To be honest, it's tough to find open teams. Most are started by schools or really motivated parents with time and space. The established independent teams don't usually advertise if they have space because you could actually run a team with as little as three people (maximum is 10). It's a lot of networking to get onto those teams. They have to know you and your kid.

For FLL(First LEGO League for kids ages 9 - 14), here's the steps I would recommend:

1. Check with your child's school if they want to start an afterschool team. Find that motivated math or science teacher.

2. Look for independent organizations that you are involved with who might want to start a team. This could be churches, boy/girl scouts, neighborhoods.

3. Get on the Colorado FLL database that would allow you to put your child's info through the head of Colorado's FLL Mr. Ross Parent to pass on in case someone is looking for more members.

It's not impossible to find a team, but I found out 4 years ago that it was just easier for me to start a team. Start talking about the program with your child's friends and maybe you'll find there's a parent out there who would also want to do the same and you can all work together as coaches/mentors.

Below is an email that I am posting from Ross Parent who runs FLL in the state of Colorado. He gets this question all the time and here are his suggestions that mainly are steps to accomplishing #3 in my notes above.

___________________________________________________

Please direct parents to FLL.ColoradoFIRST.org. The footer of every page includes the statement "Questions and Comments about Teams are welcome, email: fll.teams at ColoradoFIRST.org". One to the coach looking for a team, and one to the coaches in that team's area encouraging them to include a new member.

I can forward your contact information to teams in your area and ask them to get in touch with you. Please provide a short description promoting your child to these other teams. This might include mention of your child's interests and accomplishments with LEGO, building or robotics, and more importantly a candid and honest assessment of your child’s social skills and abilities in teamwork, sharing ideas and communicating with peers.

Please include a mention of your availability as a parent volunteer and any skills that would apply to supporting the success of the team.

This information will serve to persuade coaches that you & your child might be an asset to their team. I will forward your information to teams in your area by way of blind copy, and ask them to get back to you. You will not receive their contact information unless they respond and share it with you directly.

Just to set expectations, however, you may find more success in networking with the parents of your child's friends that share their passion for LEGO to create a team.

Registration for FLL teams began the first week-end of May at http://gofll.usfirst.org. Be sure to READ the Important Registration Information page found there.

• Team registration is usually around $225.
• Each team must order a Field Setup Kit (FSK) for the current season's game - around $75 with shipping. Kit's will begin shipping mid-summer, July to August. Register and order early, as kits are distributed "first come, first served" from the LEGO company.
• A LEGO Education Mindstorms kit can be ordered from the site also - shop and compare. It's often a very good value for the quantity of parts and the overall price per part. 
• The Colorado FIRST LEGO League competition season runs from Labor Day to early December, with scrimmages in October, qualifiers in November, and the State Championship in December. International and National Open tournaments and the FIRST World Festival occur in the spring of the following year.

Please check the following information and networking links:

• Starting or finding an FLL team in Colorado
• Colorado Find-a-Team networking site
• National TeamUp networking site

A really great way to find out what FLL is really like is to help out at one of the events. This would be great for you to participate in. Remember, also, that Colorado FLL is an entirely volunteer organization.
Colorado FLL Volunteer page - be sure to check the attachments on that page, and invite a friend to join you!

Thanks for your interest in FLL!

Colorado Springs FTC Qualifiers - Our Rookie Team Takes First Place!

The Synergists (left) and the Hawks (right). Go SynerHawks!

We had our first round of competitions on Saturday. It was quite a long day at Coronado High School. It started at 7am and didn't stop until 6:30pm. The Synergists team that my son is on did very well. In fact they came in first place along with their Alliance partners, the Hawks who came from Roswell, NM.

FTC (First Tech Challenge) is such a different animal from FLL. I wanted to post some of the differences here so I could see a comparison:

1. FTC costs more than FLL. Our first year cost about $1,000 total every year after that it cost $700-$800. FTC costs are now up to $4,000 for our first year and still going. On a positive note, companies are more apt to sponsor robots that look fancier.

2. Much more emphasis is placed on the robot in FTC. Kids are drawn to the robot in both programs. However the add on of the Research Project in FLL makes it a little more well rounded depending on your point of view.

3. Both programs allow the kids to build very capable robots using predefined parts. There was so much creativity in both programs. It so impressed me how you could build such a different looking robot and it would accomplish the same tasks.

4. FLL has more missions. We could do upwards of 12 different missions in 2.5 minutes. FTC was more straightforward. We could do 3 - 5 missions, but that didn't make it necessarily easier. It was just that we didn't need to focus so much on all the different missions. There's more of a complexity to the building and programming of the FTC robots that makes up for the lack of need to focus on so many missions.

5. There may be more strategy involved with FTC. Although you need some sort of game strategy for both programs, generally the robots in FLL are limited to working on their side of the table except for the shared mission that lies in between tables. At the FTC competition last week, we saw how strategy overcame a better robot design. One of the robots during the alliance rounds moved back and forth to block (but not too long as to be penalized) their opponent from making points. This actually worked because that robot was a great scorer.

6. Temperamental. That was the word to describe the FLL Mindstorms robots during game time. Each time you had to line up your robots exactly right. Motors and tires would not work consistently because of battery or tire wear. Things just kept changing between each round. The only real way to have consistent runs was to make use of your sensors. With the Tetrix parts, we could get more consistency and during the teleop mode, the drivers had good control.

7. Both programs are supposed to be fun. For the younger crowd at FLL, that can venture into "goofing off". For the older crowd at FTC, they can venture into taking it too seriously and forgetting to have fun. Both need balance.

Cool Science Festival

Last Saturday we participated in the Cool Science Festival at UCCS. I think it's getting more crowded at this festival. The Gazette reported that there were 7,000 attendees this year. That's a big jump. I brought along a couple of Mindstorms to do Spin Art with the kids and the FTC team build a terrific Rube Goldberg ball contraption. They had spent over 50 man hours on this and could have spent even more. Thank goodness for deadlines!

Here's a video of the contraption.

Staring intently at the ball machine. "Where can I buy that kit?"

The ball machine always needs some fixing or tweaking.

Maybe he'll go home and try building one of his own.

Spin art was a hit. We spun over 400 masterpieces.

FIRST Tech Challenge Season #1

Learning about the Engineering Lifecycle.

After three years involvement with the FLL program, we are moving up the ladder to FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge). This is a program for kids in about the 7th grade through 12th grades. It's a completely different animal. I'm not coaching this year, but I get a great view of all the action since I'm there a lot. The boys (yes, this year all boys) are really young engineers in training. They have more responsibilities and maturity. We started out our first meeting with the Engineering Lifecycle. Whew! It was great having one of the coaches as a systems engineer. If the boys don't win anything this season, it will have been worth it for them to learn what engineers do in the real world.

So having a brand new team requires money. Everything from buying a robot to shirts to program software. We are trying to raise $4,000 this year. The boys are doing a camp to advertise the FIRST programs, raise some money and work with kids who are interested in LEGOs and robotics. They will be at the Briargate YMCA leading 3 different stations for kids to get their hands on some cool LEGO technologies. Theses are not your typical LEGO sets found in the stores. They'll be working with LEGO WeDo, LEGO Simple Machines and Mechanisms and Mindstorms Robotics.

FINALLY... If you work for or know of a company that donates to STEM education, please contact us. We QUALIFY for 501(C)3 nonprofit donations.

Camp Info

When: Saturday September 14, 2013

When: 9am - 12noon or 1pm-4pm

Where: Briargate YMCA

How Much: $30 in advance or $35 at the door

Contact for Questions: Esther Lee (719) 271-2120 or ftc7104@gmail.com

Please come out and support our team! 

Download flyer.

Download registration form.

Teacher Training at Tufts

This past week I traveled to Tufts University Center for Engineering Education Outreach to attend a teacher training workshop on LEGO MIndstorms. It was so valuable to learn how others were using their technology in the classrooms. Although I’m not really a classroom teacher, I picked up some great ideas for how to organize, manage and run different exercises.  I really admire those teachers on the “front lines” of teaching in the schools. Many had come after receiving Mindstorms kits at the end of last school year and being told that’s what they were going to teach next fall. Just like that they had to learn a whole new system and they were happy to do it.

 

We basically played with LEGOs all week and got a chance to see the new EV3 machine and software. I admit I was so busy picking up on the old stuff: Mindstorms NXT-G, WeDo, Scratch and Labview that I didn’t have any time to really play with the EV3. The facilitator was excited about the new stuff, so I’m sure it will be in my future.

Here’s what I learned:

1. How to run more exercises that would appeal to girls by a)  Avoiding direct winner take all contest b)  De-emphasizing cars c) Competing against a standard instead of each other d) Holding exhibitions instead of contests
2. Having more open ended play time will allow the kids to design and discover their own creations.
3. Washing LEGOs in the washing machine is possible if you put them in a mesh bag. 
4. Have a battery charging station. Wow! You have to see it to believe it how quickly we all go through batteries. With the station, students can take care of changing batteries without having to ask you.
5. Working with WeDo and Scratch together is easy to do. You can teach more programming techniques and Scratch is free. Currently the only version that works with WeDo is Scratch 1.4. The 2.0 version should be ready for WeDo by the end of this summer.
6.  I picked up some great exercises from our teacher, Barbara Bratzel and her book Physics by Design is a terrific resource. She’s working on the next version for EV3 too!

Teachers hard at work and play.
Lining up for our slow robot race.

Our exercise in gearing down.
This was the snail race so we decorated appropriately.

I'm trying to sweep all the LEGOs off the mat in 30 seconds.

Oracle Tour of Robotics Lab

Our tour group at Oracle

One of the advantages with being involved with FIRST Lego League is sometimes you get access to people and companies that help you understand how technology/robotics is applied in the real world. The team and I got a chance to see how robots are used in helping companies store data. Our tour host warned us that this is not the type of robots you see in Star Wars like R2-D2. Although the robots we saw were not as glamourous as the movies, they were real workhorses.

I tell students that robots do the for "D" word jobs: Dirty, Dull, Dangerous and Difficult. I would generally categorize the job these robots performed as helping humans out of doing something Dull.

The robot's primary job is to retrieve tape cartridges and put them in hard drive to read and write data. Companies from all over the world will

A view of the Library with the kids hearing about how it works.

need access to these tape cartridges at some point. For some, it's to maintain backups. For others it might be to maintain data offsite. For whatever reason, when the user on the other end of the long line of cables requests information from the tape library, the robot finds the correct tape cartridge and inserts it into the tape reader which then sends or receives the data back to or from the user. The library was huge! One tape could house 5 terabytes of information and each library contained 10,000 tapes.

They used to have humans do this job of finding the right tape and inserting it into the drive. It was done by people on roller-skates. Here's even a short article on how IBM saved labor costs.

It takes mechanical, electrical and software engineers working
together to build this robot.

The kids were very interested in seeing how the robot performed its tasks. They learned that for every automation, there is a backup to keep the robot from failing. Weather it be in the software, the bar codes, the sensors or even the electrical supply, the designer has to think of all the possibilities for failure. With our Mindstorms NXT, we tried to do some, but we didn't do enough to maintain 100% consistent results. It's nice to know things fail in the real world too, but that there's a ton of hard work to keep that from happening.

The exposure that the kids got to the working environment, the people and the technology was invaluable. They don't have to wonder how math or science or engineering plays into the "real" world. They got a chance to see how they could be a part of engineering things in the future that might make life easier for the rest of us.

Click on the link to see the robot hard at work.