Wonderful Time as State!

All 62 teams crowded into this pit area. Our team is in the front center with the rainbow feather hats.

We went to state last Saturday. It was a great time of meeting with 62 other teams all over Colorado. We were jammed packed into the pit area, but the kids didn't mind. It gave them easier access to network and meet new people.

Our robot didn't perform as well at State because we were having battery issues. For some unknown reason, the two NXT recharageable batteries I bought ran out of juice even before the end of the 2.5 minute robot run. When you have a bad battery, it also affects how the robot performs. I may be switching to good ole alkaline for next year. At least that way I can count on the backups. I was so proud that none of the boys got really stressed out about it. They were disappointed, but no one "lost" it. However, they got to see Gracious Professionalism in action when one other team was kind enough to loan us their WORKING NXT recharagable backup battery. Wow! We were quite blessed and our robot worked fine again for the last two out of five rounds. I sent both batteries back for Lego Education to check out.

The boys did improve on their project presentation. It worked out so much better after we brought in a very experienced public speaker and debater who also happened to be a sister to one of the kids. She went through every single kid and pointed out what they could do to improve. It helped tremendously and the boys did better than at regionals.

So we all came away happy that it was a positive experience. Everyone who participates in state gets a medal, but only the really exceptional teams win further trophies. And only one team goes to the World Festival.

As for me, I'm glad to have a break until we start thinking of Senior Solutions!

Robot Performance 1st Place

Wow! After a very long day that lasted 10 hours our Mindstorms Maniacs came away with the #1 Robot Performance Award. This award is based on the points your robot scores on the table runs. We had 3 chances to practice in the morning and 3 real runs in the afternoon. Our afternoon scores were 122, 155 and 153. That may not seem a lot out of the total possible 452, but this year's challenges didn't assign a very high point value for any one activity. I don't know how much higher we are compared to the other 45 groups we competed against. I'll wait for the final results on the Southern Colorado Qualifier site.

Yes, this is within regulation height!

The kids really had a good time and enjoyed showing off their robot. One of our attachments barely came under the 16 inches when attached to the robot so it was humungous! Kids got a kick out of seeing what it was capable of accomplishing.

Also during competition we found so much variation in the tables that it wasn't easy getting as high of a score as we did during our practices. The team knew it was pretty pointless to try any major re-programming of our robot during the day. They mostly practiced their hand offs and pulling off and putting on attachments.

The day went smoothly and the kids had a great time having to interact with other teams during the alliance rounds. Alliance rounds are when 2-3 teams pick their best missions that run consistently and try to combine to get the highest score during the 2.5 minutes. This really got our kids out of their shell in having to interact and really take a look at other people's robot build and strategy for solving the problem.

The crowd of parents and supporters.

The folks who organized this year's tournament did not disappoint. UCCS is a great facility to have this tournament in. Nothing was too far away and parking was free! Thanks to all the volunteers who put on this valuable event for our kids. They learned how to talk to judges on a very professional level explaining their projects and robot designs. They had to problem solve as a team on the spot and mostly they learned how to respond to high pressure situations with a lot of grace for one another and for other teams.

Our fearless MC.

We also qualified for the Colorado State Championships for the first time this year. It's free and open to the public, but you do have to pay for parking. It's on December 10th at DU. Come cheer us on if you are in the neighborhood. Here we go again!

It's Not About the Robots!

Here's a wonderful quote from Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST, "It’s not about the robots. Robots are just a vehicle. What you are building is way bigger. It’s about self-confidence. It’s about relationships. It’s about making sure the future is better than the past."

After attending our first and only scrimmage of the season, sharing with hundreds of people about our project and robot and working through team issues, I'm so reminded of Dean Kamen's thoughts from above. It rings true that the FLL season is filled with opportunities for growth for both the kids and the coach. Take a bunch of boys who love, love, love LEGOs, put them in a room where they have to decide the best way of programming a robot or presenting a solution and you'll get a bunch of different ideas. We had to work through relational issues, technical issues, time issues, teamwork issues, who's in charge issues, who get's their way issues, who gets the robot to work with issues... the list goes on and on.

But in the end we showed up as a team last Saturday for our scrimmage and had a wonderful time. FLL has set up a problem/challenge that is great training in maturing these kids into real world problem solvers that can operate in both the technical and the relational realms.

Here's where I got the Kamen quote from above.

Russell Middle School Scrimmage Champs!

Definition SCRIMMAGE - A practice session or informal game.

Yesterday we competed at a local middle school against 15 other FLL teams and we actually won! I was losing hope of winning anything since we didn't get anything for the project  or robot design. I thought we were pretty strong in those areas. It turned out in the end we wound up with the plaque for the overall Scrimmage Champions. It doesn't advance us to anything at the state level or do anything really special since this was just a practice session, but we were proud to get the award.

It's only about half way through the season and no team is really ready to compete, but  we learned so much of what we needed to do from all the wonderful volunteer judges who shared with us honestly what we did well and what we could improve upon. We can only get better from here.

I LOVE what FLL teaches the kids. It's not really about the robots. The scrimmage helped the kids learn about working under pressure. They had to interact with adults who had very pointed questions about their research, teamwork and robot building design and held them accountable. Best of all, they got a chance to experience failure & disappointment and how to pick themselves up from that and continue the competition. I was so proud to be part of a team of kids who encouraged one another. One kid was really discouraged about one of the robot runs and another sat down with him and encouraged him about the whole situation. Our team definitely came together as a unit yesterday and so now I hope they will take these lessons learned and grow from it. It's not about Championships or robots or LEGOs. I'll speak to that in my next post.

We share our experiences with others

We went to Cool Science on Saturday and it was a day of non-stop talking for our kids. They interacted with hundreds of people young and old. It was such a neat event to get share with the public both the research and the robot game with the folks who came by. Kudos to the organizers who made our lives so much easier by providing wonderful volunteers and food & water.

I was so proud of all the boys who participated. For some, it was a stretch to talk to so many different people in one two hour time slot, but I absolutely think it's a terrific skill to acquire. Everybody was so nice to the boys and were genuinely interested in the MIndstorms and all they had to say about food safety.

My favorite moment of the day was when this 6 year old boy saw the robot retrieving the fish back into base. His jaw dropped wide open when he saw that. I missed catching the picture, but I did get a photo of the boy with his mom as he stayed to continue watching the robot retrieve fish.

We're going to be at Cool Science at UCCS

I've always tried to seek out those science fairs where people in business, education and the community could share their technology with young, curious minds. My kids love the hands on atmosphere and encouragement they would get from the many adult and student volunteers.

Well this year our FLL team, the Mindstorms Maniacs, are going to be at the Cool Science Festival at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Our 6 member team has been hard at work trying to come up with a good robot as well as they will be sharing some of their findings about keeping food safe.

This is our attempt to meet the FLL criteria of sharing our research and our robot. It's the first time out for the group so we're not exactly sure how it will go, but at least we'll have tried. We will have demonstrations of our current robot and have a hands on LEGO power car trying to make its way up a ramp with a load of canned chicken.

First Impressions of Food Factor FLL Season

Mission Build Day is always so hectic.

Back in July we got our mat and parts and yesterday we found out what we were supposed to do with them. Although the kids are still somewhat in "summer" mode, we got a few brain cells connecting by asking them to research the topic of FOOD. What's not to like about this year's challenge theme? It seemed more accessible for the kids this year.

Much improved this year was the project description and suggested activities. The kids and coaches really like direction in terms of what and how to research. Also improved is the new rubric for the year. It had been so confusing last year we didn't much bother with it. This year, I plan to have it on hand for all the activities we do.

Looks like we are able to use the color sensor again this year. Yeah since I've migrated all our software to Mindstorms 2.0 where the old light sensor doesn't seem to work. Also, I think we are allowed more sensors this year. Last year our team didn't use any. I want to strongly encourage the kids to try using them this year.

Oh yes, only 18 hours after the challenge release, I found someone had already uploaded their own YouTube video describing all the challenges. It's very well done. The only glaring mistake was they got East and West mixed up. Otherwise it helped me envision what the missions were.

Why a LEGO Summer Camp?

I'm what you'd call "frugal". During our kitchen remodel last year, I sold everything but the kitchen sink on Craigslist. I enjoy bargaining down at garage sales from 50 cents to 25 cents. I find great joy in getting a hotel room for less than $30 on Priceline.

So why would I offer a LEGO camp to folks who, if they are cheap like me, couldn't fathom paying money for something their kids could just do at home? How many LEGOs could you buy for the typical cost of camp? Being me, I would first try to find kits cheaper on eBay. Then I would surmise that even if I had to buy a kit for my kids, they would be able to build to their hearts content at home which would be cheaper than sending them to camp for a week. Hmmmm... now why would I want to sign up for camp?

COMMUNITY
Last week we had our first summer camp of the year. It was a great success. The children were so excited about all that they were able to build that they were playing as much as they were learning the relationships between gears, axles, motors, sails, pulleys, etc. However what the camp captured was a sense that it was OK to be curious and interested in all these mechanical things. One of the kids in the last camp said it was so much fun coming because it was OK to be smart. Wow! That's the best compliment this program could ever get! Sure he could have built in the privacy of his own home, but there's something to be said about the community that gets developed whenever you get together with like minded people.

COMPETITION
Although I didn't plan this, the week seemed like it was all about competition. Even though I wasn't keeping track of which car went the farthest or could pull the most chicken cans, kids were very in tune with trying to outdo others.  They naturally gravitated towards competing and they were quite proud when they did well or improved on their old designs. Working on your own at home would not have fostered this. Weather or not others agree or disagree with this, kids just naturally do it. I didn't offer any prizes or anything, but just ask any 5 year old soccer player if they know the score at the "no scoring" game and you'd better believe they'll be able to spout off a score.

CHALLENGE
This kind of goes with community, but I was just reading the story of Dr. Ben Carson and after the 50 member team successfully completed the complex separation of the Siamese Binder twins Mark Rogers said, "We are capable of doing even better things than we believe we are, if we challenge each other to do it." I liked that thought. Sure, there are times we can  build on our own, but there are also times having others around can push us beyond what we thought.

So here's a picture of my kitchen sink. Just didn't think this would sell well.

On Site Registration for Afternoon Classes

With less than a week left till the start of our first camp, things are full steam ahead. If you want to sign up on site, that will be available for the afternoon session from June 13 - 17 only. Just come by and fill up a registration form or check out what we'll be doing if you aren't sure your child would enjoy this camp.

BE CONSTRUCTIVE THIS SUMMER!

Opening Up Registrations

Well we've had great response from people all over the Springs for this new camp. My morning camp for 8-10 year olds in June is officially FULL! I'm so excited about running this day camp and grateful for the people who have signed up. Since I'm only registering 12 kids per camp and my first session is full, I decided to open up the afternoon camps to younger kids as well. There's been much more interest coming from the under 10 crowd so I'm going to make it possible for them to sign up in the afternoon as well.

How will this affect the original intent of the afternoon class for 11 and up? Well my first plan is to group kids by age groups so older kids will be with older kids. Depending on the level of experience for each group, I may have the older kids build slightly more difficult models and work on more different scenarios for their simple machines. That means more, "What happens if...." "Can you build a car that..." They will have more open ended questions for their builds. Finally we'll all come together for snacks and team building.

Have You Seen Me?

Couple of weeks ago got a sticker on my back window. If you have already registered or plan on registering, I'll give you a $10 discount or refund (whichever the case may be) on your registration. My only stipulation is that you have to tell me what I'm driving, where you saw me and what day that was. Seeing me at the Briargate YMCA doesn't count.

This offer good until the end of the second series of camps on July 22nd and I can't give you the refund if you see me AFTER your camp has already taken place.

YoungBotBuilders Summer Camps 2011 @ Briargate YMCA

Some of the things we'll be building this summer.

This summer I'll be running a LEGO camp at the Briargate YMCA. Thought it would be a fun experience for kids to do some constructive thinking. More and more kids are taking part of science and math oriented camps. These camps usually have activities that you couldn't fit into a normal school day. However, much of the skills practiced at camp such as cooperation, problem solving, critical thinking and discovery learning are what they need in the "real world" yet they may not have time for in school since there are deadlines to meet and tests to prepare for. I love the idea of taking our time to build, discover and work together to form the best solution. It's a luxury which may only be reserved for afterschool or summertime endeavors; especially as the kids get older. They are too busy with all their college prep or AP classes that there's no room for an elective such as building with LEGO pieces.

This first camp mainly deals with the concept of simple machines and how they interact with motors. Didn't want to deal with programming Mindstorms robots for my first endeavor into LEGO entrepreneurship. I may consider that for next year though. I think there's plenty to learn using the LEGO Education curriculum and the Simple and Motorized Mechanisms set.

So if you are at all interested, sign up quickly as space is rather limited.

FLL Teambuilding Activities

One of the major components in FIRST LEGO League is teamwork. How does the work get divided? How well do teammates work together to solve a problem? What happens when there's a disagreement? Does everyone on the team get a chance to participate? All these issues require a certain amount of teamwork to happen. During our FLL time, we would incorporate games so kids could 1) get a break and 2) enjoy working with each other in another problem solving capacity.

Here's a list of a few team building ideas we used last year as well as some new ones I'll be using this year...

1. Untie the HUMAN KNOT. The kids loved this exercise. We would pull it out every few weeks. When we first started, there was no end to the confusion and lack of coordination on the kid's part. But by the end of the season, they figured out how to appoint a "director" so tell how to undo the knot and they were able to untie the knot. Here's directions.


2. Moon Landing Team Exercise. For this activity, I divided kids into teams of 3 and they discussed the priorities for equipment for you to take if you landed on the dark side of the moon and had to meet your landing party on the other side. It's a very interesting exercise in communication and logic. Kids had to justify why they thought one piece of equipment was better than others. Much like they will have to do when they want to run a robot or program a certain way. Here's directions and worksheets.

3. Blind Build. I split up kids into two teams. Both teams get the exact same 7 - 10 LEGO pieces. Team #1 builds something with all the pieces. It doesn't have to be anything useful or pretty. They just have to build something with all the bricks connected. Team #1 then has to explain how to build their contraption to Team #2, but neither team can actually see what the other team has. I put one team behind a counter so they couldn't actually see each other. The goal is to work together to explain and understand something w/o the visual senses. Each kid can take turns adding onto the building and explaining how to build. Then we switch roles. Team #2 builds and explains their build to Team #1. 

4. Newspaper Table. Using only newspaper and tape, have kids build the strongest structure that would be able to hold up very heavy books. You aren't allowed to just stack newspapers on top of one another. You'll have 10 minutes to build. The structure must be higher than 6 inches.

5. Toothpicks & Marshmallows Bridge. For this I used some pretty old mini-marshmallows. They needed to go anyways. I had two teams build the longest spanning bridge out of toothpicks and marshmallows. They had 10 minutes to figure it out. Couldn't believe that some kids wanted to eat those marshmallows afterward! Yukk. I think gumdrops would also work well.

6. Freeze Tag. This is the same game we all played when we were younger. Kids ran around the back yard just to get the wiggles out.

7. Tall Towers. Our regional FLL teamwork challenge was to give the kids a sheet of paper and tape. They had to build the tallest structure they could with just that. Most kids figured out that you should cut the paper. I think they got 5 minutes.

8. Build a Moving Device. I learned about this at a the Virtual Robotics Summit during one of the talks. Split the group into smaller teams. For each team, you'll need to have one Mindstorms brick. Next count out about 60 other parts from the kits. Each team gets the exact same parts. You can decide which parts they get, but don't give them any wheels or gears. They have to build the best moving object out of these parts. You also decide what constitutes the "best" robot. They'll have to program this object to move. This might take a bit longer as an activity, but it will get the juices flowing for how to build the most effective and efficient movable device with whatever they have on hand. I love that they don't get wheels!

9. Information Exchange. In this activity, kids organize themselves according to specific instructions such as ordering themselves in ways such as by date of birth, by birth month, by number of people in your family, state where you were born in alpha order. All these are good ways of people getting to know what another. This is good for a first time meeting so they can get to know one another and they have to communicate with each other.

10. Giant Egg Drop. Kids divide into an even number of groups. Each group gets a goody bag filled with materials that should help a raw egg survive a two story drop. I would do this outside unless you have easy to clean floors. Each group has 15 minutes to build the best protection for their egg. The team with the egg that survives the longest drop wins. Here's things you could put in a paper lunch bag: 2 tongue depressors, 4 rubber bands, paper cup, 1 sheet of newspaper, 10 toothpicks, 1 foot of masking tape, 1 raw egg.

11. Lego Bridge Contest. Fill a small lunch paper bags. Each paper bag gets exactly the same LEGO pieces.  Make sure you put sturdy construction pieces as well as odd, small decorative pieces.  Give them to your kids and tell them they have an "x" number of minutes to construct a sturdy bridge out of the odd pieces of LEGO .  When time is up, get a can of tuna, and see if the bridges that each person built can support the can. Keep adding cans until the bridge can't hold anymore.  Award points for best design, construction, etc.  Kids love the excitement and the thought of the bridge falling apart under the weight of so many cans.

12. Sheet of Paper Step Through Game. The kids required a few hints, but in the end, they got it. You take an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. They have to figure out how to cut it in a continuous strip so that two kids can step through it. Kind of tricky, but you can see their noggins at work. Got it from this site. Also had some others I may use in the future.

13. The Cooperative Hula Hoop. This activity required a lot of concentration. The point was to have one person stand in middle of a hula hoop that's on the ground. The other team members, possibly up to four surround the outside of the hoop. The objective is to bring the hula hoop up over the head of the person in the middle. You might pick the shortest person to make it easier. The "catch" is that the team members can only use their two extended index fingers. Their index fingers cannot wrap around the hula hoop. The hula hoop just has to balance on their two extended fingers. The other rule is that ALL team members have to maintain contact with the hula hoop at all times. This was actually tough to do and the kids had to spend some time with strategy. Mostly what was difficult was there was more than one person giving instructions.

Tougher than it looks!

Close up of finger formation.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the judges are paying special attention to the process. It's not so much about the solution as much as how the kids got there.

14. Organize ANYTHING! OK I'll have to admit that this is a somewhat selfish team builder, but it saved me so much time. I had just purchased 6 LEGO WeDo sets for use in camps and as we know all too well, things just arrive in plastic bags and a box. There's a useful tray and two levels of space we could use in this box. The kids had 10 minutes to organize all 6 boxes in the most efficient method possible for kids who would use these kits to figure out. It was a great way to "kill two birds with one stone". They had never seen these kits before so they had to really think and talk about how to best sort the pieces. Then they had a limited amount of time so they had to divide the work. In the end they chose to sort them by color.

Top level sorted by color (mostly).

Bottom level mostly greys.

Extrapolate to all other things needing done and having the kids figure out how to do it. Further thoughts I had: Can you clean out and organize my closet in the most efficient way? umm... Take them to a food pantry and have them work together to accomplish as task there. (This would be a longer team building session.)

The point is that these team building sessions can be used for the benefit of others as well.

15. Popsicle Stick Triangles. The following activity tries to encourage kids to think outside of the box.  Each team is given 6 popsicle sticks with which they need to make 4 equilateral triangles. I gave them about 10 minutes to talk about it and try to figure it out. My kids couldn't solve the problem. They kept thinking in 2 dimensions. The answer was to discover that by looking for a 3-D solution, the problem can be easily solved by constructing a pyramid.

16. What Can You Do With a Coat Hanger? Kids are shown a coat hanger and asked to individually list different possible uses. They are given the freedom to use any material, size or shape of a hanger; they may imagine cutting it, shrinking it, using many of them, etc. They had to think individually about creative uses for the coat hanger and then come together to agree on a specific use. Then I made the kids come up with a "commercial" to try to sell me the coat hanger. It was funny. It took about 20 minutes.

17. Design a Tool. In this activity kids will use their creativity to develop a new tool to safely retrieve a golf ball from a garbage can. The kids cannot touch the garbage can, but the tool can. You need a lot of materials for this, but each team doesn't have to use everything. They have 20 minutes to design, build and test the device. I would use a box or any container to simulate a garbage can. This is fun because you are given so many items and the team has to come to a consensus as to what they will use. If fact there's probably enough here to build at least 3 "tools".

Materials (per team):

1) 1 paper lunch bag (yes, you can also use the bag in your build)
2) 1 golf ball
3) 4 pieces of 4" string
4) 4 drinking straws
5) pair of wooden chopsticks
6) 4 small paper clips
7) 4 rubber bands
8) 5 Post-It notes (3" x 3")
9) 3 pipe cleaners
10) 1 pencil
11) 1 foot piece of masking tape

Reflections After Being an FLL Rookie Coach

Best Research Award at Regionals

Top Ten Lessons After My First FLL Year

1. Expect to recruit the help of at least 4 - 6 other parents or individuals. Last year we participated in 1 Rookie Booster, 1 Scrimmage, 1 Regional Tournament. For each of those events, there are wonderful volunteers who spend countless hours organizing the events. In exchange they ask for help either the day before or day of the event. Each team that participates donates a couple of volunteers; and rightly so. I didn't realize this until we were into the season and then I had to ask parents. Although they willingly donated their time, it still would have been better had I known up front how much help I would have to ask for.

2. Not everything is what it seems. Our team did fine for our first year. I was actually a little relieved when we didn't make it to the state tournament. We were on the verge of burnout. However, I still secretly envied some of those other Rookie teams that actually did make it to State. I was a volunteer photographer and got to roam around the State competition pretty freely. Anyways, I spoke to another rookie coach who made it to state. It turns out even though the team did very well in the way of points and awards, only one kid did all the programming work. It really wasn't a "team". In fact much of the time was spent trying to corral the other kids into working instead of goofing off. That taught me to be careful about judging from outside results or appearances. Sure they made it to state, but not everyone really participated. That made me wonder... how many parents are actually doing the work? or mentors doing the work? or what are the kids really learning from this?

3. It's OK to show the kids some techniques to programming and problem solving. Last year I was so stuck on the motto, "Kids do the work" that I just threw them into solving the programming problems. Part of it was that I was also learning myself so I didn't know what I didn't know. I really wanted them to figure EVERYTHING out on their own. This year I'll try to coach with a little more teaching.

4. Get started on the Research Project right away. Even before we knew the outcome of the year's tournaments we got word of the next year's theme. It being "Food Factor" for 2011, I would start the kids already thinking of what they want to research and what problem they would want to solve. I had it in my mind that we could not start our research until after the September launch, but that's not really the case.

5. Don't push the kids to work for too long. Last year I tried extending our Friday sessions by incorporating dinner (Pizza Night) into the program. My kids were aged 10 - 12. We'd work for 2 1/2 hours, have pizza and then work for another 1 1/2 hours. That was too much for both me and the kids. By the end of the night our brains were all mush. I decided to add additional practices during the week instead of running marathon nights at the end of the week.

6. Ten kids is a a lot to manage. I've heard this one before. Don't feel obligated to max out your group. However, as a first year coach, I was grateful to have so many people participate and help pay for the start up expenses. It costs much more the first year so I wanted to spread the costs. Well next year I won't be maxing out my numbers. That old saying, "the more the merrier" does not apply here. I was told 6 -7 is a good number.

7. Use more sensors. As stated earlier, we got through the challenges w/o using a single sensor. It was a lot of trial and error that could have been avoided had we used the technology available to us. No one was really in a position to force the kids to use sensors since we were all learning ourselves. Next year will be different.

8. Don't be afraid to be the grown up in charge. Set down simple, but clear rules. Even though the kids loved being there and time seemed to always go by too quickly whenever we met, lay down the law so that all can enjoy their time and be the most productive. Have a heart to heart with the parents if you must.

9. Don't skimp on the team building. When you are working feverishly to prepare for tournaments or get your project into gear, it can seem like wasted time to take a break and do a team building activity, but this really helped us cement good camaraderie in the times where things get stressful and tough. The group really gelled well and creating that sense of friendship doesn't always come from a building or programming environment. I felt like we did this right last year.

10. Have fun! I'm so glad the kids had fun last year. We didn't have the best robot design, didn't use a single sensor, didn't always have all the parts we needed, didn't know what we were doing, but.... we did have fun! We also built a nice community and helped each other whenever someone needed it.

What lessons have you learned as an FLL Coach?

Technology Dumbing Us Down?

Had a conversation with a professional photographer who got the latest and greatest camera from Canon, the 5D Mark II. He says it's like a camera from another world it's so far out there technologically. It does so much for the photographer that you can get kind of lazy and actually regress in your skills if you are not careful. What else... the GPS? Calculators? Clocks? Digital cash registers?

What does this have to do with Legos? Well this past weekend, my son spent it building the ultimate in Mindstorms gadgets. It was the Rubik's Cube solver called the Tilted Twister. It took about 2 hours to build and then a lot of work to get the new cube we bought to wear itself down enough in order to work right on the contraption. Used to be in the old days, we actually had to learn how to solve the Rubik's cube with our hands. Now you just download instructions and a program and you're good to go. Just pop that little unsolved baby into the slot and out comes the completed cube.

Ahh technology... is it actually making us more stupid? Well someone actually came up with the building design and program to solve the cube.Now if we could all push ourselves to seek to continue to challenge our minds.

Join us next weekend as we work on the Soduku solver built with the Mindstorms.

Math Class in Robotics?

I made the kids figure angles turned and distances traveled for their robots in proportion to degrees rotated. They had to do some... MATH! This was not what they were thinking when they signed up for this class.

What I love about the robot calculations is that the kids actually see how to apply concepts they've learned in math. "What if I really don't want to guess how many degrees it takes for the robot to go 3 ft?" Granted, even the calculations aren't exact, but it certainly gets you in the ballpark.

Kids are drawn to these robots, but I hope this makes them also appreciate all the math and science behind them.

What's Happening in Beginning Mindstorms

This semester I'm teaching a Beginning Mindstorms class to middle school kids. All 12 happen to be boys even though it's open for girls to sign up. This class teaches the basic elements of move blocks, waiting, loops, switches and all about the sensors. We have 12 weeks to give an intro course which I think is fine, however, I do think the class would run better had it been a two hour class instead of one. It seems like we're always in a rush to do things even as we are accomplished an enormous amount this semester. If it were a two hour class, the kids would have time time build and program their stuff. As it goes now, I assign programs for homework so they bring it into class to test. It's been working fine, but I'm sure we could do more with a longer period in class.

Girls and LEGO

On a recent post to a group about LEGO that I like to read called LEGO Engineering, there was discussion about why girls aren't as attracted to LEGO classes or even LEGO bricks in general. The company tried making an effort to appeal to girls by creating a princess line of DUPLOS and LEGO brickss. Hmmm...just because something's pink, will that attract little girls?? My own little girl thought it was very attractive at first. We got one of the "pink" sets. She built it, but then lost interest. There wasn't a whole lot she wanted to do with the set after having it built.

Anyways, when I posed the question about girls, I got lots of great, but diverse answers that I'll try to summarize here. It's just been on my mind since I'm currently teaching an all boy class.

My question was:
"Would it be better for girls if I created an all girl MIndstorms NXT class? Does it matter? How do you create a different type of Mindstorms class that would appeal more to girls?"


Answers (that are all opinions from others experiences):

1. Incorporate projects that are more creative such as making music, theme park rides, dancing robots. Don't focus too much on speed and strength competitions. Have an end of the unit exhibition rather than a tournament.
2. Don't do anything different. Just separating them from the boys may be enough to build their confidence in building. The "appeal" of the class might simply be that there are no boys in it. Girls can be just as competitive as boys.
3. Boys are happy to do robotics w/o any context at all. Making your robot go is enough for them. Girls are more engaged if there is a reason such as build a robot to do something useful or helpful to someone else.
4. Have strong female role models.
5. Don't create a separate class for girls. The ones who really want to be involved with LEGO will be there no matter what the ratio or the topic.

So thoughts are all over the board. I think the great thing is that we are so diverse in our thinking and personalities that there really is no right answer to this question. I might go down the list and try them all!

P.S. My daughter recently discovered the LEGO Creator Building sets where you can build three different types of houses. She enjoys those and is able to adapt the sets and play more creatively with those.

The LEGO Fort

What do you get when you slap some 2 x 4's together, a board, 6 gray plates and lots of yard sale LEGO bricks? You get a fort of course! There is no limit to the imagination when you have a tub of LEGO bricks to work with. The kids built this fort complete with kitchen, workout room, bathroom, and much,much more. Then they used their minifigures and created characters (usually - good guys and bad guys) and made a storyline for what was happening in this fort. We are quite fortunate to have the space to allow them the freedom to keep this up and an ongoing play space.

Here's a close up of the kitchen and theater room.

Here's the jail and bad guy hang out.

In the Beginning...

This is the first of many blog posts about all things LEGO. It all started when my son got a set of Duplos when he was younger and has steadily progressed to where he's now playing with Mindstorms Robotics. As I am a homeschool mom, I decided to delve into the world of LEGO myself since I could see he was learning to be quite creative and imaginative with the things he built. The first complete sets he built were quickly memorized and he continued to grow from there. Later I found out about all the tournaments that are out there. I didn't realize you could compete in tournaments globally.

As I started LEGO groups that my kids could be involved in, it was a joy to see their minds working and thinking of creative problem solving solutions that went with their builds. Nowadays, they prefer playing with their LEGO Fort more than watching TV (it helps if you only have rabbit ear channels.)