A FIRST Lego League Team
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007
This is for all of you who have been asking and wondering how the Gothic Lawn Gnomes FIRST LEGO League team did at the World Festival in Atlanta.
Dear friends,
I think we have all recovered from our recent trip to Atlanta for the World Festival. The trip was both exciting and exhausting, fun and challenging. For those of you who want to know the results of the competition... I will tell you later. Just kidding!
We enjoyed two full days of competition and one day of watching the other (big) robots compete followed by a very large party. The first day of competition consisted of practice rounds with the robot on the floor of the Georgia Dome and judging sessions. Our first practice round went well (we scored 350 of a possible 400), but not well enough for our two robot engineers (Zach & Brian) who decided to “tweak” the programs. The second round was not good at all! The boys also got a chance to try to connect with the other four teams that we were allied with to figure out how we were going to divvy up the work. At 4pm, the Gnomes marched to the judging rooms with all their props, robot and tools. The first judging session was their project presentation (the Nano Clean skit). As they waited outside the room with the 5 other teams that were sharing the room with us, the stress was starting to show. I think many of them had jitters and were feeling the jetlag. This session was probably the most challenging to all of them – they had more mistakes in this one session than I had ever seen them do. When they were asked about their research, they looked a bit like deer caught in the headlights. The next judging session was the robot design. The kids had pulled themselves together by this point, so it went MUCH better. The judges really liked their work and they were ranked mostly in the “excellent” category. The final judging session was teamwork. The team was given two identical bags of basic brick. Then they were asked to divide into two groups. One group was to build a structure and the other group was asked to build the identical structure without looking at what the first one has done. They had a barricade between them, so team 1 gave verbal directions to team 2. They were able to “ace” this session! The judges were totally into our team during this one, so it was a good place to stop.
Day two was all about the robot. The team had 3 runs for the robot. Only the top score was counted for the “Robot Performance” section of their overall score. The first two runs were abysmal. The final run had great potential – the boys were programming it right up until we rounded them up to head to the Dome. The other part of this run that was exciting is that Kjeld Kristiansen walked over to the Dome with our team (he remembered Zach, so they were having a great conversation) and watched the robot run. The final score from this run was 365! We were happy, but also disappointed. Zach said that if they had been able to have another 30 seconds, they would have been able to put one part back into the run that they had removed. It cost them about 40 points! Oh well. It was exciting for them anyway. They also had their alliance match on Day two. Our team was allied with 4 other teams: Mindstorm Troopers, Spooner Tech, LEGO Wurth (from Brazil- Portuguese speaking), and Built on the Rock. The funny thing is that two of our partner teams were also made up of homeschoolers (Mindstorm Troopers and Built on the Rock). Those same two teams put forth three 400 point runs! It was pretty cool for our kids to be able to work with these veteran teams. We finished 11th (I think) in that round, but the kids all had a great time.
After all of the robot fun, we cleaned up the pit area (a feat in itself!), then headed to the Awards assembly. It was really fun to cheer for other teams that we had gotten to know. We did not receive any awards, much to the surprise of many of our team members and some of the other teams since we had created a “find the roaming gnome” game with our Travelocity gnomes. The prize for the one who returned our roaming gnome was a complete set of our gnome trading cards (13 in all). We were all very tired, but happy that it was over!
One of the boys on our team turned 13 on the final day of competition, so we had a team dinner to celebrate his birthday after the awards ceremony. It was fun and a nice change (though it was hard to enjoy it since we were all spread out through out the restaurant). Dinner with 39 of your friends can be a challenge in a smallish diner! We were also very tired and emotionally drained.
The third day, we were able to attend the FIRST robotics competition and awards followed by the Finale for all of the FIRST teams (FIRST Robotics, FIRST Vex, and FIRST LEGO League). The finale was WAY too loud, but it was an amazing party for the kids! There were about 8,000+ people there that night!
We received our score sheets and other paperwork from FIRST this week. I was surprised to open our envelope with all of the score sheets and find an “Honorable Mention” for Gracious Professionalism! This award was never mentioned to us or anyone at the awards ceremony, but there it was. It was nice to see that they had been noticed by the other teams (this award was voted on by the other teams). I was both thrilled and shocked. When I think back on where we started this year, I am impressed to see how far we have come! Gracious professionalism is one of the core values for FIRST and also one of the most intangible. It was also the furthest from our team in the beginning of the season. Our young people have grown in so many amazing ways! I am still trying to process how much growth and in what areas I saw this year.
At our team party this week, I asked them all if they would do it again. All of them said, ”YES!” Now we are looking ahead to next season (which starts with the opening of registration on the 1st of May), and already starting to do our research on alternative energy. This is a very busy, hard working, active group of bright young minds. They are going places! We are also setting a goal to be able to take the team to the European Open next year. That being said, if you would like to help us reach our goals by sponsoring the team, visit our website www.gothiclawngnomes.org (it was created by one of our team members).
Thank you to Dan Parker for his incredible positive attitude and coaching. Thank you also to Dave Schilling for his mentorship of our team. It inspired them to be able to work with you. Thank you all for your support and encouragement! We will probably also be starting a second team for the younger siblings of the gnomes who were inspired to try FLL by this whole incredible year!
Heidi
PS if you have any further questions, please feel free to email me at heidi@gothiclawngnomes.org (or call me).
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