Shrimp Scampi Contamination
To practice the project's exercise the guys choose shrimp scampi. They had to trace the shrimp from "farm to fork" -- hatched, caught, cut, frozen/stored, shipped, washed/cooked, served at restaurant. They delighted in describing contamination sources; especially "some guy did not wash his hands after using the toilet"!
New Puzzle (to download)
We completed another fun FLL Core Values puzzle. You can Download Double Puzzle by clicking the link.
Goals
We started setting some goals for the project, design and robot game. September is already halfway gone!
FLL Core Values Word Search
FIRST has a set of Core Values that permeate the robotics program. We solved a word search to help us remember them. You can download the MS Excel file by clicking Download Word Search.
FLL Core Values
Robot Evolution
We have been busy building the chassis for the robot, then adding the NXT. Each team member has been building one and we will take the best features from each for a single, better robot. The three pictures below show the evolution of one of the designs.
Many Missions to Complete
This year there are many missions to complete and there are 452 possible points, instead of the previous years' 400 points for a perfect score. We have been brainstorming steps in completing missions with "table tents".
New Member
We had a new member join. The now, four guys have been building chassis. We will choose the best features of each to build one mega-super-chassis.
Food Factor
This year's theme is Food Safety. We are tracing foods from farm to fork. Where can they be contaminated? By what or by whom? With recent Salmonilla turkey and E. Coli cucumbers, there are plenty of real world cases to study.
Salmonella E. Coli
We work on the research project for the first half or first third of practices.
Field Set-up Night
It has become a tradition to involve the whole family to build the feild set-up models -- a classic "many hands makes light work" scenario. Although sometimes we need to practice the "measure twice, cut once" scenario. We had pizza and salad, then everyone jumped right in and started building the models. We had a few extra parts and were missing only one!
The team is three boys this season.
We had a wonderful season and are looking forward to next year’s competition themed – Food Factor! Our end of season party was at Stevi B’s. We ate pizza, pasta and ice-cream. We played arcade games and generally had a fun evening!
We were invited to promote the FLL Program at the FIRST Robotics Challenge Peachtree Regional Tournament at the Gwinnett Center on March 18th. We showed our project and robot strategy to passersby, telling them about FIRST Lego League. Many people want to start teams or get their kids involved!
The FIRST Lego League, Georgia State Championship Tournament took place on January 29th at Georgia Tech. The Transformers won the first place Innovation and Strategy Award. You can view a short movie of our robot performing missions with our strategy on YouTube. As the presenting judge announced, our team “thunk” the best! This award recognizes a team that uses solid engineering practices and a well-developed strategy to design and build an innovative, high performing robot.
We had fun, but it was a REALLY long day!
This year’s theme is Biomedical Engineering. You can view a 5-minute version of our presentation on YouTube. The teams were to research body parts, chose one to study, and then find a problem to solve. The Transformers chose the eye and the problem to solve is that the majority of people do not go to the eye doctor. So the team invented a machine to bring the eye doctor to the people.
They invented the iScan! to be placed in stores where people go all of the time like the grocery, drug store or mall. It analyzes a digital image of your retina, and then tells you to get to the eye doctor if there are problems like macular degeneration, cataracts or retinopathy.
On January 8th, at the Warner Robins Super Regional qualifier tournament, the Transformers won the first place Gracious Professionalism Award. This award means that we competed like crazy, but did so with respect for others; we acted with integrity and community. The team made the TV News on WMAZ, CH13 Macon, GA.
Kids Getting Award
The team had a blast at Starbase Robins! We got to stay overnight in a hotel and toured the Museum of Aviation throughout the day when we were not actively engaged.
The Transformers are advancing to the Georgia State Championship tournament which takes place on January 29th, 2011 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM at Georgia Tech!
The kids finished the buttons for the upcoming Super Regional Tournament in Warner Robbins, GA on Jan. 8th all day at Starbase Robins an aviation museum. We get to compete under the suspended aircraft on display -- how cool!
Almost 200 buttons for give-aways
For their project they want to make a mock-up of their invention. They dissected an old laptop to get the screen, but also had fun pulling out every component they could
Kids dissect an old laptop
