Another Video on FLL 2010 Body Forward

Here is a video of a team from Mexico (CBRoboticSchool) working on the FLL 2010 Body Forward Challenge:

FLL Body Forward YouTube Videos

FLL Body Forward videos are starting to appear on YouTube. Some are more helpful than others but it always helps teams to have a look at solutions provided by others. Here are a couple I have looked at and thought interesting:

Here is the official blog for the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) organization:

• FLL Blog - http://fllblog.wordpress.com/;

It has some postings that give advice for teams on various parts of the FLL experience.

Robotics Online Conference

Hi Teams, Coaches, & Mentors,

I am running an online conference with Elluminate Live on October 19, 2010 at 7:00pm for LEGO robotics teams in Newfoundland and Labrador. I will be talking about the partnership between NL Skills Canada and FIRST LEGO League (FLL) NL, discuss some issues around this year's competition, provide some tips, and finsih with a Q&A session.

I recommend you use headphones with a mic if you have a set. If you don't you should at least have the sound working on your computer so you can hear the presentation. To make sure follow the instructions in the document and do an audio test when you get into the E-Live room.

I will be in the room early to prepare for my presentation. Please connect at least 10 minutes before the meeting to make sure you have no technical problems. I will want to start promptly at 7:00pm.

This online conference is also the first one in a series sponsored by the Technology Educators Special Interest Council (TESIC) at the NLTA. Also thanks to Jim Murphy at the VTV and CDLI for their help and support.

See the information below for accessing the E-Room:

-----Here is part of the instructions to get you into the room just in case anybody has trouble opening the document---------------------

Follow this link to the login page for your session.

http://elive.cdli.ca/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1158682050330

This will bring you to the login page for the Virtual Teacher Centre Room. You can also bookmark this location for future use or create a link on your desktop for it.
Here are the directions...
To join the session, you must complete the following information:

1. Email Address: your_email@yourdistrict.ca
2. Display Name: Your First Name and Last Initial (this is in case there are other participants with the same first name)
3. Session Password: vtc
4. Once you complete the info, click the log in button.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope to see you online.

Thomas

FLL Body Forward 2010 Challenge

One of my favourite times of the year is here once again. The FIRST LEGO League (FLL) challenge for 2010 has been released and this year’s theme is about biomedical engineering called Body Forward. Here is a list of resources that teams should visit:

FLL Body Forward 2010 Challenge (http://www.firstlegoleague.org/media/twocol.aspx?id=247) - On this official FLL page is all the information your team needs. It includes a section on the Robot Game with all the missions and rules explained with . There is also some important information about the Project.

TechBrick (http://www.techbrick.com/) - This is an awesome site with lots of great resources for teams competing in Body Forward. It includes sample scoring sheets, worksheets, and tips to help your team.

FLL Body Forward Scorer iPhone/iPod App by Sachin Patel (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fll-body-forward-scorer/id391265188?mt=8) - I used Sachin’s app for last year’s challenge and it was a great help keeping the scoring straight. This year’s app looks just as useful and Sachin has an update for the app already waiting approval in the iTunes Store.

The NXT Step Blog (http://www.thenxtstep.blogspot.com/) - This is one of my favourite NXT robotics sites to visit. I own several of the NXT robots books written by some of the blog contributors. James Floyd Kelly’s book, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure, has been especially useful in my courses about NXT robotics.

FLL also has a good YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/FLLGlobal#p/c/ECD69862A53BE66D).

Well, that should get any FLL team off and running. Good luck to all FLL teams!

TechBrick: Body Forward Challenge 2010-11

TechBrick is a great resource for teams involved in the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) and NL Skills Canada LEGO Robotics competitions held in Newfoundland and Labrador. They have posted resources to help out with this year's challenge:

• Resources for the FLL 2010-11 Body Forward Challenge;

Again this year I hope to use this site to help teams out across the province as we prepare for competition so please check back regularly.

FLL Smart Moves

Here are the FLL Smart Moves 2009 videos that explain the missions in this year's challenge:

FLL MISSION: GAIN ACCESS TO PLACES:




FLL MISSION: GAIN ACCESS TO THINGS (ACCESS MARKERS):



FLL MISSION: GAIN ACCESS TO THINGS (LOOPS):



FLL MISSION: AVOID IMPACT-WARNING BEACONS (BONUS):



FLL MISSION: AVOID IMPACT-SENSOR WALLS (AVOIDANCE OPTION):




FLL MISSION: SURVIVE IMPACT-SENSOR WALLS (IMPACT OPTION):



FLL MISSION: SURVIVE IMPACT-VEHICLE IMPACT TEST:



FLL MISSION: SURVIVE IMPACT-SINGLE PASSENGER RESTRAINT TEST:



FLL MISSION: SURVIVE IMPACT-MULTIPLE PASSENGER SAFETY TEST:

St. Francis Robotics - House Mission 2009

This mission completes 6 tasks at once: delivers the bike, insulation and laptop, while opening the window, turning off the lights and raising the house using pneumatics on the attachment. A total of 100 points.

Calibrating NXT motors

I always wonder why some of the robots my students build often don't go perfectly straight. It seems that not all NXT motors are created equally. This article from TechBrick.com explains how to calibrate the NXT motors to find out which ones match each other most closely:

Simple NXT Calibration: Look Ma! No Tools!

Line Following Chalenge

My students at MUN Lifelong Learning used the light sensor on an NXT robot to complete a line following challenge. They had to start the robot on the red circle, find the starting position on the oval, follow the line around the oval, and have the robot finish on the red circle.

Here are videos from Groups 1 & 2:

The Scroll Challenge

My students at MUN Lifelong Learning used the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT kit to complete the Scroll Challenge from James Floyd Kelly's book, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure. The students built a simple arm and attached it to a motor on their robot. The robot then had to move in between two boxes and lift the scroll of paper off the boxes and bring it back to start.

Skills Canada Newfoundland & Labrador: 12TH Annual Provincial Skills Competition: Robotics

The Skills Canada Newfoundland & Labrador: 12TH Annual Provincial Skills Competition was held on April 3, 2009. Robotics is one of the competitions and this year students had to design and build a robot that would pick up tennis balls and drop them into a slot in the center of the field area. The teams that competed were from:

• Ascension Collegiate (Bay Roberts)
• Carbonear Collegiate
• Botwood Collegiate
• Marystown Central High
• O'Donel High School (Mount Pearl)
  

I had permission form the organizers to take some videos with my Flip Ultra Video camera and post them to our blog. Here are 3 videos that I quickly threw together with little editing:







For more information please visit Skills Canada Newfoundland & Labrador (http://www.skillscanada-nfld.com/).

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure

To my surprise and delight, Google Books has a preview of one of my favourite NXT books, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure, by James Floyd Kelly. It is a great way to combine storytelling and learning about NXT robotics. I have used a few of the challenges in the books in the courses I teach and I particularly like the stringbot.

NL FLL 2008 Results

Here are the results from the FLL Provincial Competition held December 6, 2009 in St. Mary's, Newfoundland:

Robot Performance:
1st Place - St. Francis School (Harbour Grace)
2nd Place - Frank Roberts Junior High (CBS)
3rd Place - St. Kevin's Junior High (Goulds)

Project Presentation:
1st Place - St. Francis School (Harbour Grace)
2nd Place - Baltimore School (Ferryland)
3rd Place - Holy Name Of Mary (Lawn)

Design/Programming:
1st Place - Brother Rice (St. John's)
2nd Place - Frank Roberts Junior High (CBS)
3rd Place - St. Kevin's Junior High (Goulds)

Teamwork:
1st Place - Frank Roberts Junior High (CBS)
2nd Place - St. Kevin's Junior High (Goulds)
3rd Place - Villanova (CBS)

Overall:
1st Place - St. Francis School (Harbour Grace)
2nd Place - Frank Roberts Junior High (CBS)
3rd Place - St. Kevin's Junior High (Goulds)

NL Skills Canada LEGO Robotics 2008

The 2008 NL Skills Canada Intermediate LEGO Robotics Competition was held on November 29 at Brother Rice Junior High. It was a fun day with teams from all over the province competing in the 2008 Climate Connections Challenge. We run the Robot Game part for this competition and here are the top result:

1st Place: St. Francis School from Harbour Grace;
2nd Place: Brother Rice Junior High from St. John's;
3rd Place: Frank Roberts Junior High from CBS.

NL LEGO Robotics 2008 Season

2008 NL LEGO Robotics Competitions:

NL Skills Canada Intermediate Challenge 2008

• Date: Saturday, November 29, 2008
• Location: Brother Rice Junior High, St. John's
• Info: The scopes (guidelines) for the Intermediate Skills Canada Challenge have been released. Check them out here: http://www.skillscanada-nfld.com/ISC.php

NL FLL LEGO Robotics Provincials

• Date: Saturday, December 6, 2008
• Location: Dunne Memorial School, St. Mary's
  
• Info: The guidelines for the FLL competition are located at: http://www.firstlegoleague.org/
  

Climate Connections Challenge Revealed!

The Climate Challenge was unveiled by FLL on Friday but it is difficult to find on their web site. Here is the link to it: http://www.firstlegoleague.org/community/fll/overview.aspx

I recommend watching the videos to make sense of the Robot Game Missions.

Climate Challenge 2008-09

FLL will be officially releasing the Climate Challenge on September 5, 2008. All information should be available on their web site after that.

Systm - Episode 61 - Build an Android

Robotics Educators Conference 2008

The Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Academy cordially invites you to attend this year’s Robotics Educators Conference, to be held at Butler County Community College, north of Pittsburgh in Butler, PA.

The Conference is taking place August 6-8, 2008. For more information please visit this link:

http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/robots/corridor/main/home_matter/conference.htm