Welcome to the Hydro Dynamics Season!

Welcome back, Comet Warriors!  Since we're all veteran Lego League participants by now we can hit the ground running.  We've got a lot of work to do this season and not a lot of time to do it. The competition will likely be held in late November at Duncan MacArthur Hall (Queen's West Campus).

We'll be using this blog again this season to keep you informed about news, tips, progress, dates, and so on during the season.  Please check back regularly to make sure you get all the necessary information!  Just like last year, there will be a secret word contained in each week's blog post.  Please show up each week knowing the secret word for the week.  The word for this week is "wasser" (that's German for "water").

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.  If you don't remember what they are, please refresh your memory!  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 project and the game, please check out the videos below:

The Project:

The Robot Game:

In the next couple of weeks we'll need to pick a project.  Please think about ways we use water, and any ideas you can come up with for how we could improve the process of locating, extracting, using, or disposing of that water.

As you may remember from last season, and from the Innovation Celebration we went to the season before, new ideas often come from the intersection of new technologies - things like drones, wireless communications, robotics, cloud computing, social media, machine learning, and nanotechnologies.  Could any of these technologies be combined to solve current problems related to water?  Think hard and see what ideas you can come up with for next week.

Also, next week we're hoping to chat via computer with Dr. Bernie Cooper, world-recognized expert on groundwater.  Please bring any water-related questions you may have for him.  See you then!