The 2012 First Lego League challenge has been issued! We are officially under way. After 6 months of fund raising, getting to know one another and learning to work as a team, we finally know what we have to achieve.
The full challenge document is available by following this link...
http://firstlegoleague.org/sites/default/files/Challenge/SeniorSolutions/FLL2012SENIORSOLUTIONSChallengeAnchors.pdf
In brief, there are three parts to the challenge
PART 1 - THE PROJECT
In brief we have to "Find a senior partner". This means finding someone over the age of 60 whom we can ask lots of questions of in order to identify a potential problem that he/she has experienced through ageing.
Next we have to learn as much about this problem as we can by doing lots of research about it and finding out what solutions are currently being developed.
We then either develop these solutions further or come up with a completely new solution which we then present to a group of people for feedback.
This whole process is then presented to the FLL judges on competition day. There are some good examples on the first Lego league channel on you tube http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=first+lego+league+2011+food+factor&oq=first+lego&gs_l=youtube.1.2.35i39j0l9.3673.7902.0.16399.10.10.0.0.0.0.106.906.8j2.10.0...0.0...1ac.N6Nw95O5vn4
PART 2 - THE ROBOT GAME
The teams are provided with a field kit which consists of a mat and several exclusive Lego models which the robot has to operate. The models are all based around the years challenge. The robot has to be built from Lego Mindstorm technology and be programmed. No remote control allowed. The robot then has to complete the challenges posed by the models. As many as it can in in 2 and half minutes, scoring as highly as we can. Examples can be seen at the link above.
PART 3 - THE CORE VALUES
Both of the above parts have to be completed according to the core values of FLL which can be found at First Lego League. To comply with this we have already done loads of team building things and fundraising but we kick off our season tomorrow with a 'treasure hunt' round Manchester city centre.
Let the games begin !
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Monday, 27 August 2012
First attempts
Our first attempts at robot programming (and videoing and putting things on you tube) are below. However blogging skills do not stretch to having a little picture to click on so link below will have to do
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ktIv-HBbs&feature=youtu.be
Several of us have now babysat the robot for a week or two with varying degrees of success, but all of us feel a bit more familiar.
Starting to get a bit apprehensive now. The challenge is released tomorrow. Have we bitten off more than we can handle? Probably! But maybe that is the fastest way to learn...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ktIv-HBbs&feature=youtu.be
Several of us have now babysat the robot for a week or two with varying degrees of success, but all of us feel a bit more familiar.
Starting to get a bit apprehensive now. The challenge is released tomorrow. Have we bitten off more than we can handle? Probably! But maybe that is the fastest way to learn...
Monday, 20 August 2012
Problem solving, teamwork and design
The last couple of Lego sessions we have focused on trying to pull together as a team. now that we know how the robot works we have a better idea of what skills we will need to complete the challenge. We have completed a number of tasks which will hopefully come in handy in the long run.
Team building games
Blanket toss: Children split into two teams and each team was given a blanket the idea was to toss a ball from one blanket to another. Not as easy as it sounds.
Pipe and ball is a good team work one but it does all get a bit frantic so no pictures of this one. basically they are split into two teams and each team is given a set of gutering of differing lengths and a ball. The teams have to get the ball from one side of the room to the other, without touching it, and get the ball into a pot. This really brought out the competetive edge. Our winning time was 14 seconds. In a later session we adapted this so the task was completed in teams of two who then had to better their time and then make the course the ball had to take more complex. great for learning to communicate with each other.
There have been many other games including wrapping children together in cling film and asking them to negotiate their way round the room, blindfold obstacle courses, where one person has to lead another, balloon races and chocolate eating games.
Problem solving and design
We have pretended to be shipwrecked and had to decide, as a team, what would be useful in the life boat. We have designed personal alarms for the elderly and devices that allow people who use crutches or wheechairs to carry their personal belongings around. We are keeping our designs under wraps for now - just in case.
We have used lego to make marble runs. These present a number of design challenges as the run has to stand up without the supporting pillars falling over, slope downwards but not too steeply. The surface the marble rolls down needs to be wide enough to allow the marble to pass through, but also have sides so it doesn't roll off. The marble needs to run round corners and not shoot out of the end of the run so that you can't find it!!
We have made marble runs a couple of times, the first time, each group made their own, but the second time we just made one marble run with each sucessive group buildng onto the first one. It worked quite well and certainly revealed who is good at adding Lego parts without destroying what has already been built! This is going to be an important skill in the actual competition as we will need to adapt our robot as we go to meet the challenges ofthe robot game. This method of cooperative design and problem solving will probably be how we come up with the best robot in the end.
We have also braistormed possible problems the elderly may have so we can solve them for the research part of the project. LT has spoken to a few people and done some seriously professional research whihc we will need to utilise once the challenge is revealed.
One more session before we are doing this for real. Off to read the coaches handbook!!
Team building games
Pipe and ball is a good team work one but it does all get a bit frantic so no pictures of this one. basically they are split into two teams and each team is given a set of gutering of differing lengths and a ball. The teams have to get the ball from one side of the room to the other, without touching it, and get the ball into a pot. This really brought out the competetive edge. Our winning time was 14 seconds. In a later session we adapted this so the task was completed in teams of two who then had to better their time and then make the course the ball had to take more complex. great for learning to communicate with each other.
There have been many other games including wrapping children together in cling film and asking them to negotiate their way round the room, blindfold obstacle courses, where one person has to lead another, balloon races and chocolate eating games.
Problem solving and design
We have pretended to be shipwrecked and had to decide, as a team, what would be useful in the life boat. We have designed personal alarms for the elderly and devices that allow people who use crutches or wheechairs to carry their personal belongings around. We are keeping our designs under wraps for now - just in case.
We have used lego to make marble runs. These present a number of design challenges as the run has to stand up without the supporting pillars falling over, slope downwards but not too steeply. The surface the marble rolls down needs to be wide enough to allow the marble to pass through, but also have sides so it doesn't roll off. The marble needs to run round corners and not shoot out of the end of the run so that you can't find it!!
We have made marble runs a couple of times, the first time, each group made their own, but the second time we just made one marble run with each sucessive group buildng onto the first one. It worked quite well and certainly revealed who is good at adding Lego parts without destroying what has already been built! This is going to be an important skill in the actual competition as we will need to adapt our robot as we go to meet the challenges ofthe robot game. This method of cooperative design and problem solving will probably be how we come up with the best robot in the end. We have also braistormed possible problems the elderly may have so we can solve them for the research part of the project. LT has spoken to a few people and done some seriously professional research whihc we will need to utilise once the challenge is revealed.
One more session before we are doing this for real. Off to read the coaches handbook!!
The Lego Theme park
When we started the process of applying to be a First Lego league competition we really had no idea of what skills we would need to field a team. Also because we have had to fundraise to buy the kit, we have not been able to get our hands on the robot either. The only thing we knew for definite was that we would need to work as a team to produce a robot.
To try to simulate this idea of everyone contributing to a larger whole, we built a Lego theme park. The team either paired up or worked alone to produce 'rides' made out of lego. All teh rides had names and descriptions andthe ones I can remember are below.
The Pirate ship
Built by Q and B it is a working swining Pirate ship. Unfortunatly due to restrictions in the lego avaliable they had to resort to wool to make it swing.
To try to simulate this idea of everyone contributing to a larger whole, we built a Lego theme park. The team either paired up or worked alone to produce 'rides' made out of lego. All teh rides had names and descriptions andthe ones I can remember are below.
The Pirate ship
Built by Q and B it is a working swining Pirate ship. Unfortunatly due to restrictions in the lego avaliable they had to resort to wool to make it swing.
Lord of the Skies
A flight simulator built by LS.
Fortune telling booth by S
Log flume by JD and JS
Merry-go-round by J and E
The Climbing Wall by LT
A moving climbing wall where the top of the wall leans forwards as you climb to make it more difficult.
L's theme park ride
There were many more exciting and interesting 'rides' invented and we did put them all together to make a full theme park. Unfortunately the photo isn't very good because I rushed it and the light was bad, but its below to give an idea of the work that went in.
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