Week 4

This week we ran a team building exercise on the playground, which involved holding hands in a ring and passing hula hoops around the ring in opposite directions without letting go of each other's hands.  This requires some original thinking, teamwork, and communication - good practice for the competition.

We also heard presentations from those who said last week that they wanted to be in charge of fundraising.  There were a lot of good ideas, but Amy's presentation was the best organized, most thorough, and best presented.  Amy, you are now in charge of fundraising!  First on the fundraising list is a Toonie Toss for tomorrow night's Franco Fete.

Also today we finished up the competition table.  Yay!  We can now start prioritizing missions and designing strategies for completing them.

We discussed building a base robot with interchangeable attachments that could be added and removed for different sets of missions.  We did this last year, using one set of wheels for most missions and changing them out for the obstacle course.

The kings of the base robot / attachment world have to be Lego Vinir.  They have videos of their robot from last year's competition, along with explanations of how it works.  There are a lot of good ideas there.  Check them out at:

Lego Vinir Overview

Lego Vinir Step 1

Lego Vinir Step 2

Lego Vinir Step 3

You each received a book entitled, "The Lego Mindstorms EV3 Discovery Book."  Look closely at the robot design in the videos and see of you can get any ideas from the book on how to build and program such a thing.

Week 3

This week we:

a) took a look at how we each learn, to find approaches to learning outside of a classroom lecture.

b) did more work on setting up the competition board.  

c) chose people for particular roles on the team.

Some things you might want to look at for next week are:

1.  Online quiz for multiple intelligences

http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment

2.  Chart showing describing intelligences:

Children who are strongly:	Think	Love	Need
Word Smart	in words	reading, writing, telling stories, playing word games, etc.	books, tapes, writing tools paper diaries, dialogues, discussion, debate stories
Math Smart	by reasoning	experimenting, questioning, figuring out puzzles, calculating, etc.	things to explore and think about, science materials, manipulatives, trips to the planetarium and science museum
Picture Smart	in images and pictures	designing, drawing, visualizing, doodling, etc.	art, LEGOs, video, movies, slides, imagination games, mazes, puzzles, illustrated books, trips to art museums
Body Smart	through somatic sensations	dancing, running, jumping, building, touching, gesturing, etc.	role play, drama, movement, things to build, sports and physical games, tactile experiences, hands-on learning
Music Smart	via rhythms and melodies	singing, whistling, humming, tapping feet and hands, listening, etc..	sing-along time, trips to concerts, music playing at home and school, musical instruments
People Smart	by bouncing ideas off other people	leading, organizing, relating, manipulating, mediating, partying, etc.	friends, group games, social gatherings, community events, clubs, mentors/apprenticeships
Self Smart	deeply inside themselves	setting goals, meditating, dreaming, being quiet,	secret places, time alone, self-paced projects, choices
Nature Smart	by being in nature or around animals	taking nature walks, being with animals, touching nature, climbing trees, being outside	to be outside, touching nature, climbing trees, caring for animals, trips to nature museums

Week 1

Great news!  Our Field Setup Kit arrived today.  This is the kit with mat and all the pieces necessary to build the parts, obstacles, etc. that the robot will interact with during the missions.  The kit contains parts divided into different bags, with a bag for each mission.  

The completed game board will look like this:

World Class Field Setup

The instructions for assembling the parts for each mission can be found at:

http://www.firstlegoleague.org/challenge/missionmodelbuildinginstructions

We will spend time this week getting the competition board set up.

Ecole Catholique Cathedrale First Lego League Blog

Welcome back, Comets!  This season we've got no time to waste, as the competition is two weeks earlier than last year.  It will be held November 22 at Duncan MacArthur Hall (Queen's West Campus).

We'll be using this blog to keep you informed about news, tips, progress, dates, and so on during the upcoming season.  Please check back regularly to make sure you get all the necessary information!

Remember that the First Lego League competition consists of three main parts: 1) core values, 2) the project, and 3) the game.  The core values define how we work together as a team, and how we interact with other teams.  The project is a team research effort in a specific area, with the team required to develop and share a solution to a particular problem.  The game involves the design of a robot to complete as many missions as possible on a specially designed board.

Most participants find the robot component the most fun, but remember that the overall score is based on all three components, with each counting for roughly one third.  Your robot could complete every mission in the game successfully and your team could still finish last overall if you don't do well on the project and don't demonstrate the core values.

To get up to speed quickly on the core values, the project and the game, please check out the videos below:

The core values:

The project:

The game: