Rookie Team Presentation @ NYU Poly

Rookie Workshop Powerpoint

Helpful ResourcesFIRST LEGO League Websitehttp://firstlegoleague.org/challenge/2012seniorsolutions 

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy
http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/robots/nxteacher/index.htm 

LEGO Engineering
http://www.legoengineering.com/ 

Easy Scoring Sheet from Techbrick.com
http://www.techbrick.com/Lego/Lego2012/Resources/Documents/Challenge/FLL2012-SeniorSolutions-ScoringSheet-EN.pdf
NXT Tutorial
http://www.stemcentric.com/nxt-tutorial/ 

Dr Graeme NXT Tutorial
http://drgraeme.net/

NXT Programs
http://nxtprograms.com/ 

LEGO Parts List

Tech Brick
http://www.techbrick.com/Lego/Lego2012/Resources/index.html

Robot Movies for Senior Solutions

I recently saw Robot and Frank, and rated PG-13 may not be appropriate viewing for FLL Team members, it's great inspiration for coaches to think about how Robots helpers can greatly assist Seniors in the near future.

Robot and Frank

Another fun film is Batteries Not Included!

Batteries Not Included

Senior Solutions Kick-Off This Saturday @ NYU Poly

THIS Saturday September 22, 2012 

10:00 AM - 2:00 PM

I am teaching the Rookie Workshop at 11:15 am 

@ Polytechnic Institute of NYU 
6 Metrotech Center 
Brooklyn, NY 11201 

 Agenda:

10:00 - 10:20 AM: Welcome & Introductions (Pfizer Auditorium, 5 MetroTech Center)

10:25 - 10:40 AM: Senior Solutions Challenge Overview (Pfizer Auditorium)

10:40 - 11:15 AM: Judging Rules Overview (Pfizer Auditorium)

11:15 - 1:15 PM: Rookie Team Workshop (How to organize your team, project overview; game strategies, robot design, & NXT software tips) (JAB - Room 474)

11:15 - 12:15 PM: Jr. FLL Workshop Super Seniors (How to register, run and prepare for the JrFLL Expo) (JAB - Room 475)

11:15 - 12:15 PM: Volunteer Workshop (What is FIRST, volunteer position descriptions) (Pfizer Auditorium, 5 MetroTech Center)

11:15 - 2:00 PM: Game Overview (All Teams) (Rogers Hall [RH] - Room 116)

PS 154 Robotics Workshop

Here are some helpful links I shared at a Robotics Teacher Workshop @ PS 154 in Brooklyn:

Starter Robots:
Five Minute Bot @ NXTprograms.com

Inspriational Models and Building Contests:
NXTLOG @ MINDSTORMS.com

Curriculum:
Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy
LEGO Engineering
NXT Tutorial
Dr Graeme NXT Tutorial

LEGO Parts List

Great Body Forward Resources

Gotta love the team at TechBrick.com, who share worksheets every year to help make sorting out the FLL missions and rules much easier for coaches.

Here are a couple of my faves:

FLL Body Forward Scoring Sheet
This handy sheet has all of the missions, descriptions, and scores on one page. I enlarge it as a poster each year for easy access during practices. I also send copies home to team parents so they can understand what all the missions are.


Inspirational Video for building mission models
Jonathan, a member of TechBrick Robotics, demonstrates how to build all the table elements for this year's FIRST LEGO League (FLL) challenge in less than two minutes. (The video is sped up of course). Don't worry, it can take a couple of practices for your team to build all the models.


Visit TechBrick.com and see more worksheets and images that can help your team have a happy and successful season.

iPhone App for FLL Body Forward

The FLL Body Forward Scorer by Sachin Patel lets you score, time, and email your FIRST LEGO League Body Forward rounds on your iPhone or iPod touch.

A simple on/off swipe allows you to score each mission efficiently. The arrow allows you to quickly view the rules that correspond to each mission.

In the main menu are links to the official rules (copied directly from the FLL website) for the robot game and project. The FAQ's listed are related to last year's Smart Move challenge, so hopefully those will be updated soon.

At $0.99 it's a bargain scorekeeper at your fingertips.

Here's the link to the FLL Body Forward Scorer iphone app on apple.com.


You can also access a free online version here:
http://sawyer.hobby-site.com:8080/

Great intro video for FLL Smart Moves Research Project

I came across this video made by LEGO artist Sean Kenney on the nxtstep blog (thanks Martyn!) and think this will be a great introduction to my team's discussion on this year's FLL research project.



Teams are challenged to look at their community and discover how people, animals, information, and things travel. They need to research one main mode of transportation and investigate:

1. What kinds of problems keep people and things from getting where they are going safely?

2. What kind of problems keep people and things from moving efficiently, getting where they are going quickly and using the least amount of energy?

3. How could your team help solve one of those problems?

I am planning to use this video as a model research project and having the team role play as FLL judges. After showing the video I will ask some critical questions to get the team thinking about how they will approach their own project. Questions like:

1. What mode of transportation was researched?
2. What kinds of problems does it cause?
3. How does this mode of transportation effect our energy resources?
4. How is this video helping solve this problem?
5. If you were a judge and this was a team's presentation, what would you want to ask the team?