FLL Food Factor Robot Rounds take centre stage

Here’s the final update from TSM Roboteam, the UK’s representatives at the FIRST® LEGO® League World Festival in St Louis, US.

Friday 27^th April

Friday is robot day! There are only three robot rounds unless there is a tie.

Our first round was at 11:15. Back to the Edward Jones dome again. Four parents were also allowed to join us there like in the judging sessions. The first round went well except for the thermometer which stuck again! But we were allowed the points. The problem was that it skewed the robot off course so it failed the following mission. We could only hope for better luck next time!

Next robot round. Thermometer stuck again! Score given. But the kitchen timer mission still worked. Scored 193.

Before our final round we were interviewed to tell people about ourselves and about how we are enjoying the event. We were on the big screen and it was also on NASA TV and people back home saw us!

Final robot round. Thermometer stuck again! Score not given. We also had an accidental spillage of bacteria which pushed our score down a bit.

The robot rounds are over, but we’re happy we did our best and enjoyed demonstrating our work. The judges and referees are all very friendly and we had fun with them.

Another judge came to talk to us at our pit table. She asked a lot of questions about our team and she was really interested in our research project work.

Our team t-shirts and UK hats are now covered with badges, so we’d better not get too close to any magnets!

We had to clear our team table today as the FLL World Festival is nearly over.

We went to a Baseball game this evening and watched the St Louis Cardinals play. It was fun, especially as they won.

We will be going to the awards ceremony tomorrow and it’ll be the last time we see all the teams together.

Saturday and beyond……..

We had a chance to do a bit more sightseeing and final shopping on Saturday morning. Macy’s store was especially popular!

Saturday afternoon was the FLL awards ceremony in the Ballroom at the America’s Centre. All the teams went up on stage to receive World Festival medals in recognition of the time and work put into qualifying for this event. We didn’t receive an award, but still knew that we had done well and our best award was the whole experience of being here. The World Champions are the Falcons from Japan. We all cheered as they got their prize.

We were handed our judging results sheets. Although our robot performance was a bit disappointing compared with what we normally expect, the overall score for Research Project, Robot Technical and Core Values was over 80% which we are very pleased with.

As we left we said goodbye to some of the other teams. We’re going to keep in touch with our Friendship Day team from St Louis, and with our Alliance team from Texas (we both really liked the chef’s hats we made for each other).

Saturday night we were about to head out for a meal when a thunderstorm passed over and there were hailstones the size of golfballs. We had to wait about half an hour before it was safe to go outside. On the news it said that the hail had broken some car windscreens!

We flew back home on Sunday. We were worried that we might miss our connecting flight from Chicago as there was only about 50 minutes between flights, so we hoped our Chicago flight wouldn’t be delayed. It turned out alright but we were half an hour late arriving at Heathrow because of congestion and had to fly round in circles for a while!

We arrived back home around midday which was about 06:00 St Louis time. So it’s going to take a while to adjust to UK time. We’re back to school on Tuesday….can’t wait to tell all our friends about our adventure!

Judging Complete at FLL World Festival

TSM Roboteam complete their Core Values, Project Presentation and Technical Design judging at the FIRST® LEGO® League World Festival.

Thursday 26^th April

Today we had our sessions with the judges to present and talk about our work. We started at 09:00 and all the judging sessions took place in one hour, not spread over the day like we’ve been used to. So we did our final practice in a hotel room the night before. There’s just a five minute break in between each of the judging sessions! Judging was in the America’s Center not far from our pits. For the first time, four parents were also allowed to watch us being judged as well as our coaches.

First up it was our research presentation. We’ve normally used a table to represent eating at a kitchen table – but there wasn’t a table there. Fortunately we’d planned for this and had our ‘meal’ as a picnic on the floor instead. We don’t know why they didn’t think that was unhygienic. It seemed to go well, and they really liked our special freezer monitor device that we’d made.

Next it was the robot technical discussion. Unlike in the UK, we had to do a four minute presentation on our design and programming, and then the judges asked questions. We also had to demonstrate our favourite robot trip. We think we did well and the judges seemed to like our design.

Finally the core values judging. Firstly we had a short teamwork exercise which was to work out from a list which of the items are most important to take with us for a long trip. We had some fun with this and we also made the judges laugh at our ideas and choices. We’d had to make a Core Values poster before we came to St Louis. So we presented this and explained the information that we’d listed. This finished off with questions about how we worked together and planned things. They asked us what was the biggest decision we had to make as a team. We all said letting Joe join our team. That got everyone laughing, including Joe!

We had two practice rounds today. These were run just like the real event tomorrow, but the scores didn’t count. We didn’t do as well as we hoped, mostly because the thermometers kept sticking! However we still got scores over 180 so it wasn’t too bad. We’re hoping things will improve tomorrow, but it was great to go into the huge Edward Jones dome and take part.

We’ve met many more teams today and swapped badges and other items. The team from China were very friendly  (like us of course) and keen to get photographed with us, but then so are all the other teams.

We had an Alliance project to do and we were paired with a team from Texas. Each team had to decorate paper chefs hats and present them to the other team. We had a good time with that.

We’ve taken a look at the FTC and FRC robots and they are ‘awesome’ as they say in these parts.

We’ve also heard that our families back home have seen us on NASA TV!

Tomorrow we have our three robot rounds. Fingers crossed they go well.

TSM Roboteam get set for FLL Kick-off!

Here’s the latest report from TSM Roboteam, the UK representatives at the FIRST® LEGO® League World Festival in St Louis, USA.

Tuesday 24^th April

It’s Friendship Day today, and many of the international teams signed up to meet host teams from St Louis. We’d already been in touch with a team by email, but now we were actually going to meet them.

We walked from our hotel to the America’s Center, and then we travelled by bus to the Science Center. All the teams were greeted by their hosts on arrival and we exchanged gifts. Our hosts were very friendly and we enjoyed some of the activities together. There was a science demonstration with exploding balloons, dry ice, electrical sparks and lots more. Some of our team went up on stage to have a go.

There was lots of choice of different kinds of American food to eat, and we could choose anything we liked.  There was a chance to dance to some music near the end – a bit like at the national finals, which was fun.

Before we left we had an official photo taken with our host team and we hope to keep in touch. Our host team isn’t in the World Festival, but will be taking part in an American Open Championships in a few weeks’ time – so we wished them luck.

Tomorrow we register our team and set up our pits. We’ll also get practicing our presentations.

Wednesday 25^th April

Although the weather has been dry so far and reasonably warm, today is about 26C. So it makes for a very warm walk to the America’s Center.

Early afternoon we registered our team and decorated our pit tables. There’s no mistaking we’re from the UK with all the union flag bunting we’ve used! We’ve even had some made with TSM Roboteam printed on it. We are the first table in the corner of the room that you see when entering the pit area.

As teams started to arrive we’ve been able to meet a few and say hello. We’ve already collected quite a few badges.

We’ve had a bit more practice of our presentations today. We have to make a very early start tomorrow as our three judging sessions start at 09:00! After that we have two robot practice rounds in the afternoon.

We’ll let you know soon how we got on!

FIRST® LEGO® League UK & Ireland Final 2012

On Saturday 28 January 2012, 24 teams from across the UK and Ireland gathered at Loughborough University to compete in the UK & Ireland finals of the 2012 FIRST® LEGO® League.

The teams, all regional winners aged 9-16, were tasked with designing, building and programming robots built using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education to complete a number of activities against the clock. These activities all related the theme for this year’s competition, Food Factor. Additionally, teams were scored on the presentation of a related project and their team spirit throughout the competition.

Action from the 4 main game tables

Spurred on by the energetic MC Paul Sleem, the competition soon heated up. The overall winners of the event were TSM Roboteam from Trimley St Martin Primary School who now have the opportunity to represent the UK & Ireland at the World FLL Championship in St Louis, USA.

TSM Roboteam being presented their winning trophy by Ward Van Duffel, Managing Director of LEGO Education Europe

Three teams also qualified for the European FLL Championship in Germany. These were Widcombe Wrobotiers from Widcombe Junior School, St Thomas Food-o-Bots from St Thomas Church of England Primary School and Bor-EAT-ton from Boreatton Scouts.

A number of other awards were also handed during the event. These included:

• Judges Award for excellent use of multimedia
• Winners: B33bots – Home educators
• Ford Award for Team Spirit
• Winners: Team Rathmore from Rathmore Grammar School
• Loughborough University Award for Innovation
• Widcombe Wrobotiers from Widcombe Junior School
• Core Values
• Runners Up: Mad Scientists from Swanmore College of Technology
• Winners: Beechen Robotics from Beechen Cliff School
• Robot Game
• Runners Up: Widcombe Wrobotiers from Widcombe Junior School
• Winners: TSM Roboteam from Trimley St Martin Primary School
• Robot Design
• Runners Up: T.H.S. from Thorpe Hall School
• Winners: Bor-EAT-ton from Boreatton Scouts
• Research Project
• Runners Up: LiNKS Elite
• Winners: St Thomas Food-o-bots
• Champion’s Award Winners
• TSM Roboteam

The spirit in which the finals were entered into by all the teams was fantastic and the FLL competition as a whole goes a long way towards showing how STEM can be delivered to young people in an exciting and engaging way.

Take a look at more photos from the day.

Visit the FIRST LEGO League website for more information about the competition and taking part next year.

2012 Challenge – Senior Solutions

Can FIRST LEGO League teams improve the quality of life for seniors by helping them continue to be independent, engaged and connected in their communities? In the 2012 Senior Solutions Challenge, over 200,000 children ages 9 to16 from more than 60 countries will explore the topic of aging and how it may effect a person’s ability to maintain his or her lifestyle – solving issues like getting around, keeping in touch or staying fit. Teams will research obstacles and then suggest ways to improve the quality of life for the seniors affected. Teams will also build, test and program an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS Education robot to solve a set of missions on an obstacle course. Throughout their experience, teams will operate under FLL’s signature set of Core Values.