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!