Amusing Finds *<:o)

We came across a few pretty interesting little things at our tournaments this year.

Below is a list of fun team numbers from our competitions:

• #1
• #3
• #434
• #6666
• #6000
• #60
• #6060
• #6061
• #7071
• #5599
• #4803 (Three years ago our team number was #4801)
• #1744 (Close to our team number)
• ...And of course, we can't forget ours! - #1544

Another cool thing: we met up with four teams that started as a team the same year we did. They were even at our first regional tournament in Madison six years ago. Unfortunately, this was the last year in FLL for two of the teams. Both of them are planning to move on as FIRST Tech teams though.

We were surprised to hear a couple teams and volunteers talking about our original team banner from 3 years ago that floated under balloons. They remembered it! ...But then again, who could forget?

Also interesting, the team that won champions at our state tournament, team VHS FIRST (Friends In Really Stylish Tuxedoes), is a homeschooled team. We enjoyed talking with them since most of us are homeschooled, too.

Right near our pit table at the state tournament, team Sh!ft1 had a very impressive pit display board. It was robot controlled! They had a three sided board configuration inside a cutout of their larger display board. By pressing the gray arrow buttons on an NXT brick, people could turn the three sided board set-up to see all sides. It's challenging to describe, but it was really ingenious!

...Wonder what we'll discover at future tournaments.

State

     As you know our team made it to state and we had two weeks to prepare for the tournament. Well now the tournament is over and we all had a lot of fun and enjoyed every moment of it. We finished the day with a second place award in research with seventeen types of research! After the tournament we all hung out and talked about how the tournament went and ate dinner and some ice cream.

     Our team will also be partaking in other events throughout the year. Such as a 4-H LEGO tournament, the Waukesha JanBoree, and the county and state fairs.

What a wonderful end to a great FLL season!

Avery

Click here for more pictures of our tournament.

State Preparations

Okay, the state tournament is just a hop, skip, and a jump away. We can't wait!

Guess what, we've had some thrilling recent developments for our project! Andrew Isham, an expert we contacted earlier in the season, has some connections that are interested in learning more about our project. Perhaps we'll actually get our idea implemented. Isn't that exciting?

This year, the state tournament is doing something a little different that they've never done before. They added a poster presentation for the Core Values interview and a Robot Executive Design Summary which is a short presentation for the technical interview. That means we have our work cut out for us.

We've completed the Core Values poster tri-fold board and we've made a presentation board for the technical interview, too. Now we just have to rehearse these two new presentations and the skit as well.

We're nearly ready!

We Did It!

Regional was awesome! We had so much fun. There were so many top-notch teams there.

All three interviews in the morning went smoothly and many judges visited our pit. We even got to help a rookie team that had no programming for their robot. We got programs working for them and they were able to score as highly as our robot for the first round!

...Not everything was perfect though... We lost our robot jig, download cable, and some of the attachments we use. Because of that, our robot was unable to score as highly as we had hoped. After all three robot rounds, we slipped from ranking 9th to 11th place. Not too bad, ehh?

Then finally came the awards ceremony! We were nominated for several awards and won....... the RUNNER'S-UP CHAMPIONS award!!! Afterward we headed to Culver's to celebrate.

Now we have 3 weeks to prepare for state.

Just Two Days Left

Can you believe it? The competition is TOMORROW! We are Ready! Our team name is #1544 T.E.A.M. Dose-E-Dough! Our innovative project for Senior Solutions is completed, and our team slogan is completed as well!

Our team has been working hard and is ready for the competition. Everyone is anxious as the day draws near. The preparations are nearly there and the robot just needs a little fine tuning.

T.E.A.M. Dose-E-Dough is getting ready to hear all those cheers for teams from all over the region! All the teams have worked hard and while we can't wait to tell the judges about our innovative solution, we can't wait to see what the other teams came up with too!

It will be a long, tiring, yet, exciting day and T.E.A.M. Dose-E-Dough is hoping to hear our name be announced over that huge, blaring speaker announcing the names of the teams that won various awards.

Tonight, we have one team meeting left to go over our lines for our skit, practice our interview skills, work on some team building exercises, and to fine tune our robot. Our team meeting tonight will be extra fun because we get to have a PIZZA party! Who doesn't get excited about that?

Avery

At This Week's Meeting...

Our team has decided on our project. We are going to be working on the details and the skit/presentation too. We hope to settle in and get busy now that we have decided on our project.

Our team is also working hard on the robot and the mission strategy for the robot competition and the technical interview at the tournament. We have programmed some of the missions and are working on others. We have decided also on the body of the robot and have some really good ideas for the attachments on the robot.

We are still accepting survey entry's. The survey takes about five minutes to fill out and is just some basic questions. The link for the survey was posted in a previous entry.

Thank you.

Fieldtrip to Oak Hill Terrace

Here are some pictures of our recent fieldtrip to Oak Hill Terrace in Waukesha. While we were there, we met with some senior residents and also had a tour of the assisted living style facility.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112785021053295249322/OakHillTerrace

Upon arriving at Oak Hill Terrace, the team first went to talk to the seniors who live at Oak Hill to help us determine what some existing problems the seniors are experiencing or have experienced. The team then went on a tour of the building compliments of Robert Best.

When we were talking to the seniors we asked them a lot of questions. They told us the many reasons why they moved to Oak Hill Terrace, why and how they need help. The seniors were very happy to answer all of the questions we asked and we got a lot of information from them. Some of the things we learned were that seniors are very afraid of falling and so a lot of them moved in to the building because they are scared and they feel safer there where they can get help 24 hours a day. Some of the seniors also live there because they felt that they could no longer keep up with the house work or because their husband/wife needed the assistance so they moved in together. Some of the seniors also admitted to moving to an assisted living facility because their children had requested the move feeling that their parents would be safer and better looked after there.

All of the residents indicated that they were happy living at Oak Hill Terrace and appreciate the variety and extensive list of daily assistance available to them.

We all learned a lot of helpful information from the seniors at Oak Hill Terrace and now feel like we have a better understanding of the trials seniors face as it relates to mobility, staying fit and staying connected.

Thank you again Robert Best and the Residents of Oak Hill Terrace.

Avery

Teamwork

Our team has some pictures from our teamwork exercises and from building the mission board. The links for them follow:

This is the link for Building the field elements. https://picasaweb.google.com/112785021053295249322/2012BuildingTheFieldElements

This is the link for some of our teamwork fun. https://picasaweb.google.com/112785021053295249322/TeamworkFun

And this is the link for teamwork exercises. https://picasaweb.google.com/112785021053295249322/TeamworkExercises

We have a lot of fun on our team but we also are serious when we need to get stuff done. Even though we have more experienced members they don't do everything. The new team members are a large part of the operation also. We enjoy working and playing together and we also enjoy completing the tasks that are before us.

Avery

Updates on Senior Solutions. . . 2012!

Our team is starting off the new season with new team members. This year we have four new members and four returning members. The new team members are Peyton, Garen, Katie, and Maya. The four members that are returning from last year are Spencer, Alex, Jessica, and Avery. We also have three team members that have graduated off the team and we would like acknowledge them for their time spent on the team. The graduating members are: Madeline, Curtis, and Hannah. Thank you for your time and commitment to the team.

We have started off the year by building the board and downing a five or six frozen pizzas.

So far this season for research, we have gone on two field trips. The first fieldtrip was to Oak Hill Terrace, an assisted living facility in Waukesha. The second fieldtrip we took was to the Brewer Company in Menomonee Falls (a medical equipmanet company). Later this month, we will be meeting with someone from the Waukesha County Department of the Aging and Disabled.

Also, to help us identify what potential problems exist in the senior community, we are reaching out to as many people as possible that are 60 and over to take a simple online survey designed by one of our returning members. The link for this survey is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/S88GC77

We would also like to publicly thank the group of senior residents at Oak Hill Terrace as well as Robert Best for the "focus group" session and tour of their facility. We learned a lot of information from them and want to thank them for their time.

We would also like to thank the Brewer Company for showing us how their business works as well as some innovative solutions to real problems that have been developed into some real working products. This gave us more inspiration to keep coming up with more ideas to help our senior community!

Finally, our team would not exist without donations from various sources to help us pay for entry fees to tournaments, equipment and parts for our robots, etc. Therefore, we would like to thank Keystone Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning for generously helping to support our team this year.

Thank you for helping us get off to a great start!

Avery

Fundraising

We have great news! GE is going to sponsor our team again this year! This a huge development for our team as it costs quite a bit of money to buy LEGO NXT equipment and enter our team into tournaments, etc. We are thankful to GE for once again sponsoring us.

We are still looking for more sponsors to help fund our team. We have completed a fundraising letter and are sending out to grandmas and grandpas and other businesses too.

Avery

New Survey for Senior Solutions

Please answer our survey if you are age 60~ or older to help us identify problems that exist within the senior community so we can develop an innovative solution.  Thank you for your help!
Click here to take survey

Inspiration at the County Fair

A smiling little girl, with her eyes brightening, exclaimed, "I like Mindstorms now!" Though the girl had watched her brother on his robotics team before, she had seen little that held her interest. Moments before announcing her new-found fascination to her mother, she approached our team's robot, pressed the orange start button, and ran the LEGO NXT robot herself. She discovered the fun that FIRST LEGO League has promoted since 1999.

This was at the Waukesha County Fair where our team was privileged to bring that inspiration to her during our interactive demonstrations over the weekend. Young and old alike learned the benefits of being on an FLL team. From fun, to innovation, to teamwork and gracious professionalism, we shared how being on the T.E.A.M. helps young minds grow. Introducing robotics to fascinated youth and adults of all ages, and enlightening many to the world of robotics, our team looks forward to our next opportunity to share our passion for science, technology, engineering and math at the Wisconsin State Fair.

-Madeline

End of Season. . . But wait, there's more!

Our 2011 season has now officially ended. Since the state tournament we have continued being active in 4-H by:

• presenting our project and the spirit of FLL at the Waukesha Janboree.
• scoring blue ribbons at our 4-H County Fair judging.
• helping a Girl Scouts FLL team hone their skills in design, presentation, and organization.

Though three of our team members graduated from the team this year, we hope to see them return in a new role -- this time to mentor the TEAM. Now we move into our off-season meetings to learn, prepare, and share as much as we can. It's not too early to get ready for the fall 2012 season!

~Madeline