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.