Our Taco Force FLL ORTOP team was invited to talk about FLL at the Kiwanis Meeting this week.  It happened rather quickly, over the holiday weekend. We had the basics of the Project fulfilled – but had not worked on presentation – other than to vote on what type of presentation to give. We steered the kids into giving a game show type presentation. 

However, when they had 2-3 hours on Saturday to work on the Project Presentation Board – they took a totally different direction.  Really great flip cards with our questions and answers on them with a cool pizza pie type lapbook piece in the middle made to look like a large gear. On Saturday some of the kids worked on the Project Board, some worked on the Robot Board for the pit, and some worked on programming. So – after 3 hours we came together to chat about the project board, realizing we needed to plan what we would share with Kiwanis. However, have you ever worked with young kids on a Saturday after a Holiday? They were done! So we sent them home, with the Q & A to practice, then we would meet on Thursday at noon at Kiwanis to present. 

That sounded like a good idea at the time. But my mommy and coach brain had from Saturday afternoon til Thursday Afternoon to wonder how in the world would the presentation form up?

Again, as they have done all year – the kiddos blew my socks off. 🙂 They stood in a room full of mostly new to them people, lined right up, put up their displays, and just started in! We need to work a bit on the sequence – but other than that they did great! The audience was engaged and then started asking them several questions, mostly directed to me, regarding FLL.

We ended up leaving with a community group that supports us, who graciously passed the hat to make up for our budget shortfall for T-shirts, Supplies, and Tournament Traveling Expenses – Thank You Lincoln City Kiwanis!!!

The kids spoke much in the afternoon of how overwhelmed they were by the generosity, not only from the wallets, but MOSTLY from the verbal praise and well wishes. The praise and well wishes were unexpected by the kiddos.  Such a boost in their morale – such a boost in creating the final touch of team spirit. 

If you have the opportunity to present your information – what you have so far – before the Qualifying Tournament – I offer the advice to DO IT! The experience was amazing!

The kids went back to school for the day and then came to our house after school to program getting the robot to the brain this afternoon.  It turned into a three hour practice – and they made it to the brain. (It took them an hour and a half to get to the Brain.) I keep mentioning the sensors that might make things easier, but they like the trial and error of the Go Until 600 Degrees, Turn 55 Degrees pattern. The older team mates lost the younger team mate’s joy of programming over the math of the 360 Degrees, but they had a great time hanging out under the table, and popping up to take turns plugging the Robot in to download the program. We had about 45 minutes of the whole team taking part on the questioning of how to get there, but once the nitty gritty of the blocks came in, you could see the programmers separate from the builders. They did figure out that they could create a My Block to pass between the first obstacle of bones, should they need to pass that way again, so far, they’ve just re-created the pass. I guess they had to do it enough times to figure out this tip learned early on was needed. 🙂 They’ll be here tonight to  work on the actual missions on the Brain and Medicine Dispenser, but getting there seemed to be the hardest part!  Poor Taco the Robot had quite the workout yesterday!

Giving a shout out to all the Online Coaches who have helped and encouraged me this year so far!  QT’s on December 11th!!!!

Programming on Top

Building Guide Pieces to use to help remember to keep the Robot In Base before hitting the Orange Go!

Epic Minifig Battles over who would take possession of the found Halloween Candy Hoarded under the Copy Machine found by the Explorer .  . . . Hey. Did anyone notice that the chocolate is gone and we are fighting over a wrapper??? Vader. What are you doing over there. . . . . . . .