Robotics Teams Finish Season Strong

Great job everyone!  

Here's what should appear in the bulletin next week:

"Lafayette robotics teams had a great showing at the South Seattle FLL robot tournament on Saturday, Dec. 2nd.  The Mystic Mindstormers and Lego Minds, a mix of 2nd and 3rd graders, were the youngest teams there and outscored a number of older teams.  The girls team, the Go-Go Bots, scored well and won a Core Values Award for Gracious Professionalism.  Congratulations to all the team members."

* Remember, we have no team meetings in December.  We'll pick up again in January with new projects and activities.  But pop back here to the blog through the month, as we'll be posting some ideas and cool links.

* Parents, we still need your good photos from the tournament, so we can pick a nice one for the yearbook.

Shirt Mockups Ready

Here's a mockup of what the LM & MM shirts will look like when printed:

Thanks to Dylan's dad, Chris, for getting our shirts made!

MM & LM: Remember Research for Friday

Lego Minds and Mystic Mindstormers, please remember to do your research and bring to Friday's meeting (day after Thanksgiving).

You want to find at least one source (books, articles, web pages, interview) that gives details about your team's problem (Salmonella in eggs, or Trichinosis in pork) or your solution (warning label, or independent inspectors).

Beside the problem area itself, look for related problems where the solution was tried (for example, where have warning labels been used before? Where are independent inspectors used?).

Navigating with "Forward" and "Turn"

Get Ready: This week Lego(r) Minds and Mystic Mindstormers(r) will use the "Forward" and "Turn" custom blocks being developed for navigation.  This makes programming a mission much easier.  With them, your robot can get anywhere on the table with just a few steps.

You just need to measure a distance with a tape measure, and enter the centimeters into the Forward block.  When you need to turn, use a protractor to measure the angle, and enter the degrees in a Turn block.


If you need to move around objects, break up your path into a small number of simple steps. Then measure the distance and direction of each step, using a new Forward and Turn block to do the moving.

Mystic Mindstormers' logo

The logo for Mystic Mindstormers has been scanned, and will get printed on shirts when the Lego Minds logo is ready.  Nice work, Owen!

Remember, both teams need to choose a color for their shirt. Since the shirts won't be printed in time for this Saturday's Coe Robotics Festival, see if you can pick a color which everyone on the team has at home. That way, you can all wear a regular shirt of the right (approximate) color on Saturday, and we can give you temporary stickers with your team logo to stick on.

Mindstorms Powers the World's Fastest Rubik's Cube Solver!

These guys took a bunch of Mindstorms kits, and a cell phone's camera, and programmed it to be the world's fastest machine to solve the Rubik's Cube. Amazing :-)

Video - FLL Game Designer Gives Hints

Scott Evans is FLL's Game Designer. Here he shows each of the missions you can attempt, and drops some hints about what to watch out for.

Video of Food Factor Missions

This video shows what each mission involves.

Coe Robotics Festival in a Week

Both the Lego(r) Minds team and the Mystic Mindstormers(r) team will participate in the FLL scrimmage at the Coe Robotics Festival, 9am-3pm on Saturday, November 12th. Details here.


Time Slot      FLL team Activity
9:00–9:30AM    Teams arrive, sign-in and setup pit and display
9:30AM         Opening Ceremony
10:00-12:00AM  Each FLL team will have 20 minute practice slot Competition Table
1:00-2:30PM    FLL Robot Competition
2:45PM         FLL Robot Competition Recognition Ceremony
3:00PM         Closing Ceremony and team clean-up

Mindstorms(r) Programming with Cards

Here's a two-minute demonstration of designing a program using our paper cards.  This helps teams share the available computer(s) better.

First Post

This is the blog of LaSER -- Lafayette Science, Engineering, and Science.