Our Tournament!!!

       Our team competed this past Sunday at the Marquette regional tournament. We did a great job and had a ton of fun. Unfortunately, our lead robot driver was unable to attend the tournament. To represent our missing team member we put a Lego mini figure on the front of the robot.

T.E.A.M. with mini Alex queued and ready to go for interviews

       After we set up or pit display, we had interviews. First, was the project interview which went great despite a few missing props. Thankfully, we were able to recover smoothly and finish the presentation. In the Q and A afterward the judges only had two questions and were able to dismiss us to our next interview early.

Our Pit!

Preparing for Interviews     

      While we were waiting for our next interview, we realized we had forgotten our laptop down at our pit table. After retrieving the laptop from the pits, our team was ready to go. We had one of the best robot design interviews we have had yet! All the team members from head programmers to skit writers had something great to add to the conversation. The programmers wowed the judges with how well they understood the robot code and their effective use of the gyro sensor.

Running the robot

At the practice tables

        After the robot interview, we just had our core values interview left. The teamwork exercise went great and the judges were impressed with how organized our team was. After a short Q and A the interviews were over and we just had robot matches left.

Sitting with other teams in the audience

The Robot Stage

       In our first robot match we scored 69 points and we were in 10th place. Afterward, we got some time on the practice tables and worked on some quick fixes to our programs. Then, we headed off to our second robot match. This time we scored 40 points and were in 22nd. After programming another quick mission to help us score a little higher we went back for our third robot match. The programs ran almost perfectly but our score was only 66 points. Afterward, we found out that one of the mission models had been built incorrectly and had undone a task. However, it was too late to do anything about it so we remained in 22nd place. A bit disappointed, we headed off to the award ceremony.

In the Pit

T.E.A.M. Huddle

       At the award ceremony our team won the Innovative Solution award which quickly restored our spirits! Though we didn't move on to sectionals we still had a ton of fun and, as always, we headed off for some ice cream to celebrate.

#4889 T.E.A.M. Dia-Get-It - Thumbs up!

See the rest of our tournament photos on our Picassa page.

Survey About Diabetic Education

We are super excited about our research project this year! 

Our team discovered that some newly diagnosed Type 1 Diabetics struggle in their diabetic classes to understand everything they need to know about their disease. Current teaching methods just aren't effective enough. We asked ourselves, "How can we help newly diagnosed Type 1 Diabetics understand and learn to manage their diabetes in a fun way?"

We are working with several professionals and expert teams who assist us in research and developing ideas for our innovative solution. Wanna help too? Now you can!

Please, take a survey! We have designed three different surveys, about 10 questions each, to help us gather statistics and information we need to solve this ever-growing problem. You can find links to our surveys listed below. To get started, select one that applies to you!

Thanks so much for all your help! It means a lot to us!

• For the Type 1 Diabetic: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DFBS9ZZ

• For each caregiver of a Type 1 Diabetic (past and present): https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DFQGTNX

• For professionals and leaders who have contact with Type 1 Diabetics: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9NNLM88

For more information about our team, check our team photos and videos.

T.E.A.M. #4889

FIRST changed how they do team numbers. Instead of receiving a new number every year, now the number a team gets is what they keep for as long as they are a team.

We are team number 4889!

Below is a list of all the team numbers we have had:

• #2659  -  (Year 2007, team name: Solar Revenge)
• #4184  -  (Year 2008, team name: Solar Revenge)
• #4801  -  (Year 2009, team name: T.E.A.M.)*
• #3176  -  (Year 2010, team name: T.E.A.M. F.I.R.S.T. Aid)**
• #4877  -  (Year 2011, team name: T.E.A.M. Temp-Assure)*
• #1544  -  (Year 2012, team name: T.E.A.M. Dose-E-Dough)*
• #244  -  (Year 2013, team name: T.E.A.M. Flash Drivez)*
• #4889  -  (Year 2014, team name: T.E.A.M. Dia-Get-It)*

*T.E.A.M. stands for Tackling Everything And More
** Our F.I.R.S.T. stood for Frequent Information Response and Safety Team

Volunteering at the Waukesha FLL Tournament

Our team is a 4-H team from Waukesha County. On November 1st, there was an FLL tournament at Waukesha South High School. Three of our current team members, all three of our youth mentors, our coach, several past team members, as well as other 4-H members all volunteered at the tournament. 

Here we are at the tournament: some current team members and our youth mentors.

Our team members volunteering at the Waukesha FLL Tournament.

Playing some Ninja during a break.

Playing some Ninja during a break.

Teamwork

We always look forward to practicing teamwork exercises, they are lots of fun! Our coaches like to be creative and come up with all sorts of silly challenges, like hopping around the yard... Here, take a look for yourself!  :D

Check out our YouTube channel for more videos! 
http://www.youtube.com/user/FLLRobotics

An Update!

Discussing efficiency and team goals

We have been keeping busy and having lots of fun!
We practice time management by grouping into subteams each meeting to accomplish our team goals efficiently.

Testing an idea

We finished programing our myblocks library and mission programming is underway! The robot subteam is furthering their knowledge and skills by trying out some in-depth programming concepts this year. The lead programmers help mentor the less experienced ones. We found a couple robot modifications we need to make, but we are up to that challenge.

Field trip to work with a professional

The project subteam has completed the planning and designing of our project. They went on field trips to meet with professionals in the field and learned a lot. Now we are working closely with one expert who is thrilled with our innovative solution and is helping us find resources to actually make our project a reality! Isn't that super cool? Currently we are working diligently to write a creative skit to share in the community and present to judges. So far it is looking great!

Working together

We have also been practicing fun teamwork exercises and core values interview prep. We know how important it is to have an even balance on all three aspects of FLL, robot, project, and core values. Through teamwork exercises and fun games during meeting breaks, we have really bonded as a team and friendships have grown.




We have kept active outside of meeting times too!

A few completed models

Our coaches and mentors are involved with the FRC team, CORE, who run an FLL tournament every year. This year we helped them assemble the mission models for the competition fields used for upcoming tournaments.

At the scrimmage

We participated in a scrimmage in Cudahy with 7 other teams. It was a great opportunity to prepare and practice for our regional tournament. Here is a link to pictures of us at the scrimmage:
https://picasaweb.google.com/11278502105
3295249322/Scrimmage20141028

At 4-H

We also have plans to present our project in the community in a few different ways. Besides the usual general sharing we do individually, we are scheduled to meet with a team of experts and a 4-H club.




We can't wait for tournament season to begin and are looking forward to the Waukesha regional where many of our team members, coaches, and mentors will be volunteering.

Everything is pulling together and we are all excited for our regional tournament which is just a few weeks away!

A Teamwork Exercise

Madeline came up with another fun teamwork exercise for us. It was a little different than what we usually do. It's good to practice different things that make us think, plan, and respond in new ways.