Sunday, December 26, 2010

Happy Holidays!!

Happy Holidays everyone from the Crushing Techno Tigers!

Please note that we have a very important tiger missing from this photo.
We are missing Techno Brick!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Congratulations so the Crushing Techno Tigers!

Congratulations so the Crushing Techno Tigers on a fabulous season!

Last Lego blog update of the year.

In their very first year the Crushing Techno Tigers accomplished the following:
  • Created a robot from a few buckets of individual legos
  • Programmed the robot to successfully complete an impressive set of tasks
    • Many of these programs used complex code
  • Gained the respect of many FLL teams through what their performance!
  • Created a WILDLY successful blog!
    • 2,500 blog views
    • From 32 different countries
    • Learned what a blog was
    • Learned how to post to a blog
    • Learned a some fun information about the countries that viewed our blog
  • Won 4th place overall in Flint (out of 56 total teams)
  • Won a 1st place trophy for Innovation and Strategy
  • Learned a TON while completing their research project
    • About the body, its functions and systems
    • About blood clots
    • About how to conduct an interview with professionals in the workforce
  • Have programmed the robot to achieve 395 out a possible 400 points

This is merely a partial list!

The kids had my respect right from the very first meeting and I could not ask for a better crew to work with

Simply OUTSTANDING!!


- Coach Daddio

Friday, December 10, 2010

New YouTube video check us out

Today we posted a new video to our YouTube channel.

The video shows how the Clot-Bot can get 370 points out of 400!!




By M"Ash" Potato






Saturday, December 4, 2010

370 in 2 minutes and 24 seconds


Guess what? The Crushing Techno Tigers got 370 in about 2 minutes and 24 seconds out the 2 and 1/2 minutes we had on the robot board at the C.T.T HQ!

by Robotic Robo Rithik

Here is a picture of our robot, named Clot-Bot

POINTS!!!

Robot progress!

As of now we can achieve 330 points!!!!!! However, we have not run them all together yet to see how we are on time.

M"Ash" Potato

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Yet another new country

We have a new country that has visited our blog.Its..... Bulgaria!

Monday, November 22, 2010

30 COUNTRIES!!!

That's right, we have now been visited by 30 different countries from around the world!!

The latest countries to be added are:
- Egypt
- Saudi Arabia
- South Korea
- Argentina
- Hungary
- Israel


Congrats to the Tigers for an amazing season and for continuing to work! They have told me that we have more to accomplish :)

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Results of the Regional Tournament

We had a lot of fun in our regional tournament and placed pretty high with our robot score. We had some long waits for interviews and it was a really crazy day. In the end the team did amazingly well under some challenging conditions.

I am so amazed at all the tremendously wonderful comments this team has received in our rookie year. The potential of this team will be something to watch!!!

Friday, November 12, 2010

FLINT!

At Flint we got a 1st place trophy for our robot design and strategy!

For most of the day we were in 4th place with our robot score and then at the end we were tied for 9th place out of 56 teams! We were close to 200 points in robot score.

That's what happened in Flint.



Written by,

Northbound

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Hard work and preparations for the regional tournament

We are working really hard this week and based on the comments received in Flint we have arranged an additional interview with a researcher that studies biomedical physics and nanotechnology. This will help us better understand our innovative idea and let us know if it is really possible.

Our robot runs are getting pretty consistent now too!

Flint Tournament Pictures - From Nov 6th, 2010


















M"Ash" Potato's thoughts on our first tournament - Flint Michigan, November 6th

On November 6th, 2010 we went to our first tournament! At the end we all got to dance. Soon the host said "TEAM 2562" to let us know we had won FIRST PLACE out of 56 teams for Innovation and Strategy for the robot! We went wild!!


Written by M"Ash" Potato

Lizard's thoughts on our first tournament - Flint Michigan, November 6th

Our team did a very good job at the Flint tournament.

For the robot challenge we finished tied for 9th place out of 56 teams and we won FIRST place for Innovation and Strategy. We were so excited!!


- Written by Lizard

Creature Man's thoughts on our first tournament - Flint Michigan, November 6th

It was sweet!

The pit area was cool... how all the teams were cheering and you could see all the team boards. People came around and gave candy, stickers, and 'suns'. The interviews were fun because the judges were funny. One judge saw the back of my t-shirt and he called me Creature Man.

My favorite interview was the technical one, because we were able to talk about how we built the robot, the attachments and the programming. Also the dancing part was a lot of fun especially to the song "Cotton Eyed Joe" at the end. It was awesome hearing our number called and going to slap all of the judges hands.

Written by Creature Man

Thursday, October 28, 2010

A YouTube Channel is born.

There are a few videos on the YouTube Channel. One from the kids working over the summer and one that I was playing around with to tell friends an family about FLL without sound.

Click here! - View the Crushing Techno Tigers' YouTube Channel

Not much there but we're working on it :)

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Adjustment to the attachment.

Today Lizard and I made an adjustment to the attachment on the robot to get even more points. We had to find the correct angles to make the new Lego's we added to the attachment fit. It took a while but we figured it out.

by M"Ash" Potato

More points !

Well, a CTT member came over to CTT-HQ the other day and made some LARGE strides with things that have been troubling the team. We now have a redesigned attachment, a different attachment 'adjusted' and a few programs worked on.

This work brings the probability of many more table points with the robot.


GREAT JOB TEAM!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

"Dhruv On The Rules"



This is one of the team's most notable parts of our meetings known by the team as: "Dhruv On The Rules"

During this part of our meetings we get caught up-to-date on all of the rule updates and clarifications as they are posted on the web. Dhruv has done an excellent job this season of keeping us informed of any and all updates!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Fun, focused and busy

The past week has been fun and busy. We have been programming our robot to do our missions and we have also been working on our project. We had our group interview and I interviewed someone myself. It was fun talking to someone about our project.

By Lizard

Sunday, October 17, 2010

CRUNCH TIME - Preparation for tournaments begins

Things are really coming together!

--ROBOT--
Our programming and robot missions are getting closer with every meeting. We now have a few things fully accomplished and working on more! It seems that we are making great progress and overcoming significant obstacles at each meeting.

--PROJECT--
Having done some interviews and a lot of research is really paying off. We are now working on our project presentation that we will have to give at the tournament. The kids are really having a blast with this portion. This group of kids is really great! It is exciting to see the kids get just as excited about working on the research project as they are about working on the robot!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Do you know what this is? Is it a team mascot?


If you think you know what this is, sign our guest book and submit your guess!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Robot Strategy & Project Topic


Tonight we had an wonderful meeting!

Together we:
  • Worked with our robot
  • Wrote a few programs that will benefit the whole team for the rest of the season
  • Narrowed in on our robot strategy for the first combined point mission
  • With our research topic chosen (Cardiovascular System) have ALSO identified our 'problem' that we will be studying
These kids continue to impress!!

Thursday, September 30, 2010

We are learning and having fun!

So far we have been learning about the cardiovascular system and heart, programming on our robot 'spencer' and building our robots. Right now we have 779 views of our blog!!! Crushing Techno Tigers also have chosen our unique Lego names: M"Ash"Potato, Bob-E-Bob, Northbound, Banana Pop, Robotic Robo Rithik, Techno Brick, Creature-man, Lizard and Coach Daddio. We plan to continue researching, learning and working with Legos to complete the challenges and research project.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Trip to FLL Rookie Camp

First we did a continuous line drawing team building exercise. We drew a robot.
Discussed the different types of robots and what they do.
  • There are three parts to a robot: Body, programming, purpose
  • We built the body of a robot.
  • We played Follow the line blindfolded to teach us pseudocoding.
  • Then they taught us programming.with our robots that we built.
  • They explained to us about all the differnt sensors and how they work.
  • They taught us how to program different blocks.

They gave us challenges while we programmed:
  • go forward, turn left beep once, backup
  • go forward until robot hits wall, back up, turn left, beep
  • follow a line
There was a guest speaker Walt H, he reviewed the challenge and what was important.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Completed two robot designs!

Well, the team has been hard at work trying to complete their two robot designs that each provide different, good, options. Tonight the team completed both :)

The kids refused to go home until they were done.

Tonight was also fun on another note. We had two team members that programmed for the first time and completed the task, in a short period of time. They did a wonderful job, communicated extremely well with one another and followed an engineering 'process' in completing the program.

I love the attitude of this team!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Work, work, work!

Tonight the team shared their research with one another and from this they narrowed our topics down to a few. At the next full meeting the team will choose one topic to study for the remainder of the season.

The rest of the meeting was spent working on our two competing robot designs. Making the robot frames stronger, adding critical elements and getting them ready to share with the whole team.

A third group worked on programming and trying to solve one of the missions.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

brainstorming for the project

First we checked out our blog and saw pictures of us doing activities. Plus 565 people have visited our blog!

Then we brainstormed body parts, systems and functions. After listing the body parts, etc. each team member picked their favorite two items from the list.

Next Coach Daddio quizzed us on how many points each mission is worth. Then he placed mission pieces in various places on the challenge board and asked if we would get the points that the mission was worth.

Then we revealed our two favorite items from the list to the team. We were then split into different groups by Coach Daddio to share our ideas and study each others choices.


written by, Robotic Robo Rithik

Friday, September 3, 2010

A CTT Celebration - Body Forward Challenge Release Party

Well Tonight we partied... CTT style.

The team was anxiously awaiting the release of the challenge and we decided to have a party to celebrate the release of the 2010 Body Forward challenge. While we enjoyed some fun snacks and drinks we also explored:

- The field setup
- The rules
- The points

We also discussed:
- Robot and field strategy
- The details of the project

I am really impressed with the questions that this rookie team asked and the strategies that are already being discussed. The entire team is VERY excited and ready to get moving on the challenge!


The challenge release party begins.


The Crushing Techno Tigers explore the Robot Game Rules


Now this guy knows how to party eh?

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Interview with Multiple Sclerosis Society - More Body Forward Research

Today the Crushing Techno Tigers and the Robo Hippies met with three wonderful people from the Multiple Sclerosis Society. The representatives from MS did a wonderful job explaining:
- What MS is
- Describing the how it is diagnosed
- Describing the many ways that it can affect people

The kids really enjoyed and learned a lot from the interview. A big hit with the kids was the "Try it on" program that was brought in by Tammy, Bris and Lennie. This consisted of four stations, that the kids rotated through, that enabled them to learn what it might be like to accomplish 'every day' tasks if they were to have MS. It is one thing to discuss what the symptoms are it is another to really try simple things like buttoning up a shirt when you can't feel the buttons with your fingers or how tiring it can be to walk 10 feet when your fighting to keep your balance and your ankles feel like they weigh 10 pounds each.

Simply a wonderful experience.



Monday, August 30, 2010

New visitors!!

The team was very excited to learn that we have had:

- Over 450 views of our blog
- 185 unique visitors (different computers)
- Visitors from U.S, India & Spain




Sunday, August 29, 2010

marshmallow challenge


First, we did 2 teamwork challenges using marshmallows. For the first challenge we had to build a tower out of the marshmallows. The second challenge was to build a tower of marshmallows but only letting 8 marshmallows touch the ground.

Then, we talked about what we could have done better. After that, we split in to 2 groups of 3, 1 group practicing programming and the other group fixing a robot. Then, we talked about what we did.

After that, we did 1 more teamwork challenge using marshmallows again. We had to build anything we wanted. Then, we talked about sites where we could find more information for FLL.

We are waiting for the challenge to be released later this week.!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Study, Practice & Review

Tonight we had a great time doing some internet studying, teamwork practice & review of all things FLL. I am very impressed with this crew of amazing kids!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

More Body Forward Research - Biomedical Lab Tour

Today we our team got the opportunity to go on another interview/tour. This was to a biomedical lab where we were exposed to MANY different types of experiments, physical models and technology. We are really ready for the challenge to be released!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

We were in the Oakland Press News Paper - Sunday August 15th, 2010

This picture was HUGE!!! The picture and write-up filled a 1/2 page of the Sunday Oakland Press newspaper. Wow was that exciting.



Click on the image to see a better view of the Oakland Press Corkboard.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Body Forward Research Interview

This week we went on our first research interview. It was a very interesting tour/interview!! We toured a facility that builds prosthetic limbs and got to see and explore the entire process from raw materials all the way through the patients working hard with physical therapy. What a wonderful experience for the kids (and the coach)!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Project research and interview preparation

Tonight the team learned more about the Body Forward theme and did some computer research.

Afterward the team used the rest of the time talking about our first interview at a local business and brainstorming the questions the team would like to ask.


The team doing some computer research.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Readying for the release of the challenge on Sept 3rd

The last two meetings were great and team has been focusing on learning about how to build strong and sturdy robots and how to evaluate their designs. In addition we have had a lot of success exploring the programming environment and I think all the team members are comfortable with programming the robot now. We are all really excited for September 3rd to learn about the details of the Body Forward challenge!

Our team loves to build with technics!


"Programming the robot is a blast."


More building and working together.

Monday, July 26, 2010

We're in the news!

Last weekend the Crushing Techno Tigers volunteered at the MS Bike Event. The bikers ride over 150 miles in two days. Day one starts in Fenton, MI and finishes at the Michigan State University campus. The riders spend the night on campus, get up the next morning and then ride back to Fenton. We volunteered at the finish line in Fenton where the kids and parents set-up the decorations, organized and handled the riders luggage, and handed out metals to the riders as they crossed the finish line.

Check us out! - Click Here


Note from the Multiple Sclerosis Society:
Bike MS is for cyclists and all those seeking a personal challenge and a world free of MS. Bike MS is the premier fundraising cycling series in the nation. With a choice of over 100 extraordinary rides nationwide, including four right here in Michigan, the Bike MS experience is the ride of your life.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

pool party meeting - by Crushing Techno Tiger Daniel


We reviewed the core values.
Talked about strategies with a lego car.
We talked about stories that we thought of.
We did a team work exercises.
we went swimming.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

"The Package" has arrived!!!!

We had an impromptu meeting tonight to see what was in "The Package". It was our course for the 2010 robot challenge. Had a lot of fun watching the team work together to assemble the pieces using the instructions. This was truly a teamwork challenge! Now the course is fully set up and ready to tease us all until September 3rd when the full challenge is released. We can't wait until September 3rd!!!

Thinking about what it will all look like.


Looking at the mat and setting a 'build plan'.


Sorting and building sure seemed like a big teamwork exercise.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Volunteering at the MS Bike charity event

We had a GREAT time volunteering at the MS Bike charity event today. The team and parents volunteered at finish line. We helped set everything up, move and organize the riders luggage and hand out metals to the riders as they crossed the finish line. What a wonderful event - Thank you everyone!









Wednesday, July 14, 2010

notes from our third meeting - by Crushing Techno Tiger Nathan

First, we did a word search that used words that were about core values. Then, we talked talked about what a core value is. Next, we talked about different Lego pieces. For example one of the pieces was a beam. Next, we talked about robot safety. Part of robot safety is to be careful about not dropping your team's robot. Lastly, we talked about how this year we will be interviewing people. That's what we did at the meeting. We also wrote our first program making the robot move around using the move block.


The coach guides us.


The kids do the work (programming).