Taco Force had its humble beginnings at the LEGO Club time at the library.  Our Amazing Librarian started the club when the Library opened in February of 2010. There would be 30 plus kids in the common area playing with the legos that have been donated.  REALLY cool sets. Its where I met the moms that I am friends with now. All the boys that my sons are friends with were met at LEGO Club. One LEGO Club day, Ms. Rita came by, saw all the kids, and gets excited. She tells us about First Lego League. She says we have enough kids to form several teams. She kept coming back with the NXT and the RCX robots – Letting the kids program them. Play with them. She told us to sign up for some training if we wanted to be involved in the ORTOP First Lego League. Sure! I’d love to learn more about it – and then – I found out the training that I went to was to become a coach. And it qualified me for a scholarship – so all materials and registrations were covered. About $800.00 worth.  So we called the folks that signed up on the list – and Battta Bing. That’s how a mom becomes a Rookie Lego Coach.  The kids have been working on the robot, learning what FLL is all about, learning about the tournament, learning – learning- learning.

And now- Its time to DO!  The Robot configuration has been changed 4-5 times.  This last build took 3 solid days. Tweaking. Sorting. Moving parts.  Up until this morning – when Nate was finishing the forklift part of Taco the Robot.  We were getting ready to take the invitation of our Amazing Librarian –

“oh another thing..
if any of you cool kids want to come and do open lego building this
Saturday I’ll have it open 1-3pm in the Commons at the library-“

The team had to attach the last parts on, so I asked Jon today if he could go build me a robot PLEASE with the parts on the table. Here’s what I got.

I got really nervous when the instructions said we needed Kite String for the last part to make the forklift work. I’ll need to go check the regulations and see if we can use it – or how we get “Lego string”. For now, We have Official Lincoln City Kit String. If our town gets to vote – they’ll say it’s OK. 🙂

So here’s Taco –

Nate just got the last pieces together about 15 minutes before LEGO Club time – so he programmed the computer while we were at the library.

There was a pretty good turn out for LEGO Club at the Library – for a Saturday!

Nate, Jon and Karl got to show Taco the Robot to the crowd of eager kiddos.  When the Tournament is over,
I look forward to letting the kids create a program and watch the Robot do it’s thing. 🙂

Taco Force gives a big thank you to Teena at the Driftwood Library in Lincoln City – to Cathy at ORTOP  – and to Ms. Rita who pulled us all together!