RETIRED - Stories

[JimKelly]

*** IMPORTANT ***

By posting a story, you are agreeing to let us use your name (or team name) as well as the city/state/country.  Last names/surnames can be changed to a single initial if requested.  There is no compensation for your question or story being included - but hey, you'll be semi-famous in FLL circles!  We'll work with you if any editing or clarification needs to be done to your submission.  THANK YOU in advance for your help!

PLEASE keep stories to a maximum of 3-4 paragraphs.  Stories may and probably will be edited for content and length.

*** IMPORTANT ***

UPDATE:  The book is completed - thank you for your submissions.

[NXTMonger]

Our "sister team",  the Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies, made it to World Fest in 2007.  However, they accomplished this in an unusual way:  they didn't rely on their table scores to win!  They started in January 2007,  more than 1/2 a year before the FLL season began.  They studied energy efficiency until they were all well versed in the subject. They also spent the pre-season designing an amazing robot, impossiblé tres. 
When the mat came out, they were raring to go and by the time competition rolled around, they were reliably getting table scores in the 300's.  But at the regional competition, the robot got "stage fright", and managed a top score of less than 200.  Despite this, they got first place and were invited to State.  When it was time to go to state, there robot was now reliably scoring 380's.  However, the robot got skittish again and only got 285.  They did ace the other categories,  teamwork, robot design, and presentation, but they got 2nd place. They would have got 1st if they had got 10 more measly points! So close, and yet so far!  But then, a few weeks later, they discovered that they WERE going to Worlds, because of an optional essay they had submitted earlier in the year.
So the moral of this story is... Don't only focus on the robot!

(this was an all-girl team from Beaverton, Oregon)
Co-coaches - Mark and Ami Fitzgerald
⬆story written by Marten S., of the A.E.R.O. Cows

[TechBrick]

New Coach? Overwhelmed by the process? Here's seven key motivational points to remember.

Anything worth doing is worth doing…

Let's get this straight: Participating in a FIRST program is worth doing. You're part of a global program with more than 200,000 students and thousands of adult mentors and coaches.  You're part of program that is recognized as one of the best training grounds for young engineers. You're part of a program that has dozens of colleges offering scholarships to participants and hundreds of local and international corporations providing support. Finally, you're part of program that will challenge, stretch, and educate  your team members in more ways than they can imagine and in ways they will never forget.
 
Complete the research in general

If you're a first time coach it all seems a bit overwhelming. The goal is to have something prepared the meets the challenge guidelines. Plan to have a presentation. Make it modest, but make it complete. Dream big, but work realistically. Your team will be happy to have presented well. This is one area that even young rookie teams can excel because it is, essentially, a creative research report.
 
Get a few missions down cold…

Each year's board poses unique challenges and strategies. This year, more than ever. Yes, some experienced teams will score well. However, every team should score acceptably. The mistake is to try to solve the entire challenge at once. For a new rookie team (and coach), pick the three or four tasks that are obvious and effectively score substantial points (satellite, windmills, etc.) and get them working. Not only will your team be encouraged, but makes sure they will get an acceptable score. Need help? Scour the web for building and programming tips.

Follow our four-point methodology for all work:
 
Simple: Less parts, fewer problems. Less steps, fewer points of failure. And, make sure you can easily change the battery.

Reliable: Make it strong. Drop test the robot (yes, every year at least one robot self-destructs like this). Put pressure on it while changing attachments. Stretch and bend your components. Make sure everything is strong.

Repeatable: Make sure you solution works over and over again. Drill, film, analyze. Remember, it doesn't matter if it worked once or even fifty times if it doesn't work at the competition.

Precise: Here's a secret you'll only hear from us: "Lego robotics is an inherently imprecise system." Okay? We said it. That means that no matter how carefully you aim a robot it's not likely to cross the board in the same way every time. You make sure that your robots does its tasks with precision and purpose.

Bonus Point: Don't forget the 'A' factor. That's Adrenaline. It works like this: Whatever works consistently in practice is not likely to work that way in competition. The solution: use our scoring sheet and do run after run using a timer. Turn on really loud music and get some applause tracks from the web and crank them up. Replicate the noise and confusion and a tournament. And, do everything you can do to get to a local scrimmage or trial competition.
 
Plan on being here…

This sounds too simple. But every year many teams that have registered, bought equipment, and met for months, drop out of their state competitions at the last minute. Just plan on being at your state or preliminary competition no matter what you've completed. It's part of the learning experience.
 
Remember the adage of the early days of stock car racing: “Run what you brung…”

Yes, there will be some amazing robots. But your's will be amazing too because your team built it. Make sure your team members are proud of the work and run it well.
 
My third rule of consulting: “Nothing takes an hour…”

(First two rules don't apply here). What does this rule mean? Nothing you do with your team will take an hour. Rather it will take hours of work, thinking, re-working, analyzing, and planning. Just don't expect solutions in minutes.
 
Be there and be square…

You want your kids to be square (not look square). This world needs sensible, clear thinking students who know how to get work done and done well. Students who will come away from the work with an appreciation for the order and design of the universe and raw materials with which they will work. We are doing nothing less than cultivating the technologies of the future (and hopefully, a transporter).
That's it for now... See you at the competition!

From TechBrick.com Team Tips
http://www.techbrick.com/Lego/TechBrick/TeamTips/SevenTips.html

[TechBrick]

The 'No Limits' challenge in 2005 required the teams to drive down the side of the field and find a white color bus stop. There were three bus stops (two dark, one light) and the position was randomized.

The only way to solve it consistently was to use the RCX light senors. RCX light sensors are inherently myopic and required the robots to run very close the table edge. When you mix in the imprecision of the system, the robots would frequently run too far away or crash into the bus stops.

The team was quite perplexed by this and we discussed it over a number of meetings. A few days later I suggested to my daughter that they needed to improve the accuracy.  I explained they needed to focus the light sensor.

She disappeared and came back with a Spiderman Inspector magnifying glass. It's about the size the tip of her pinky. I showed her how to test the optics with a light and a sheet of paper.

About an hour later she came back having built a shroud around the light sensor with a perfectly distanced magnifying glass. The result was a whopping 1200% increase in efficiency.

The robot could now run 8-10 inches away and still reliably sense the bus stop.

What a great lesson learned.

[DaveParker]

The 'No Limits' challenge in 2005 required the teams to drive down the side of the field and find a white color bus stop. There were three bus stops (two dark, one light) and the position was randomized.

The only way to solve it consistently was to use the RCX light senors. .

My team that year learned to think out of the box on this one...  Since the robot is allowed to take sensor inputs from the humans when in base, and the humans can see the flag positions, they added two touch sensors to the robot, and simply told it which position to go to based on S1, S2, or both pressed, no light sensor needed.

Every year there is a lot of out-of-the box thinking on many missions, which is fun to watch and challenging for the refs and rule makers to keep up with!

[Maniac]

I work with a great team, ranging in ages from 10 to 15.  In that kind of setting you would expect that the older students would dominate the younger ones.  If that were the case, however, some of our teams best ideas would never have been voiced.  The coaches on our team always make sure that everybody knows that every idea is worth listening to.

Here's an illustration:  During the 2007-2008 challenge (Power Puzzle) our team brainstormed for weeks trying to find a building that was both unique and exciting.  As a joke, one of the younger team members said "Hey, we should to the Mount Washington Observatory!".... the result: One of the older team members thought the idea was so cool that he called them up and got permission.  It turned out to be one of the best projects that I personally have been involved with, the whole team had a blast at Mount Washington, plus it earned them top marks at their regional tournament. 

Still don't believe me?  How about talking about the table:  Throughout the years, our robot has always been modular.  That means that we have a base robot and put different attachments on it depending on what mission we're doing.  The thing is, the attachments don't always work.  Our team uses a process called Successive Refinement, which basically means that once a person has built their idea, everybody else adds their ideas until the end product works flawlessly.  A great example of this was our teams Satellite attachment for the Power Puzzle competition.  This mission was constantly being reworked... so much so that by the time it was ready for competition, it looked almost nothing like the original idea!  That was because every one of the ten students added their input, time, and ideas until we had an attachment that worked every time. 

It applies to the project and to the table, but especially when working on teamwork, make sure the team knows that every idea is worth listening to.

Micah, graduated team member, Mindstorms Mayhem, NH