Category Archives: Community Outreach

Welcome 2014 North Texas FLL Teams and Coaches

Today was the official release of the FIRST LEGO League 2014 Challenge (“World Class”), and the Republic of Pi is looking forward to another exciting season!

If you’re a new coach or a rookie team, we welcome you. We know you probably have a lot of questions and uncertainty about FLL, and we’re glad to help wherever we can.

As in previous years, our team is maintaining a resources page with links and copies of documents relating to the North Texas regional FLL tournaments. The page is available at http://republicofpi.org/projects/fll2014/resources/, or you can follow the links in the “FLL” menu above.

We create and maintain the resources page so that all of the announcements and files that come up over the season are available to us in one place. But it’s also useful for others and we like to share resources freely. If you think of anything else that would be helpful to keep on the page, please let us know!

Be sure to also join the North Texas FLL Google Group, as there are often many helpful announcements and discussions taking place there, and it’s an excellent place to ask questions.

Have a great World Class season!

Welcome 2013 North Texas FLL Teams and Coaches

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Today was the first UTD Coaches Clinic’ for 2013, hosted again by Dr. Kenneth Berry. It was wonderful to meet so many new coaches and see another exciting year get underway!

If you’re a new coach or a rookie team, we know you likely have lots of questions and trepidation. We’re glad to help where we can.

As in previous years, our team is maintaining a resources page with links and copies of documents relating to the North Texas Regional FLL tournaments. The page is available at http://republicofpi.org/projects/fll2013/resources/ , or you can follow the “FLL” links in the menu above.

We create and maintain this page for our own benefit — to make it easy to have announcements and files all in one place. But we also know it can be useful for others, and we like to share it freely. If you can think of anything else that would be helpful to have available on the page, please let us know!

If nothing else, be sure to join the North Texas FLL Google Group — lots of announcements and helpful discussions take place there.

Portable FLL table demonstration

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At last year’s North Texas regional qualifier tournament, the team’s robot did not perform as well as expected. After reviewing the robot’s performance, we decided that the practice table we had been using was partially to blame. So it was time to build a new one.

The video below shows the table we came up with. One important feature of the table is that it disassembles into pieces small enough to fit into our van, so we can take our FLL equipment to other schools and organizations for demonstrations. Indeed, this was the table we used for our Discovery Days exhibit at the Perot Museum earlier this year.

Enjoy!

Volunteered at Perot Museum for Innovation and Engineering Discovery Day

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Model Scout Robotics put in a full day volunteering at the Perot Museum on February 9. For the Discovery Day on Innovation and Engineering event, the team members gave demos of our FIRST LEGO League 2012 Robot Game solution. We also brought several of our other LEGO Mindstorms robots and had a station set up so visitors could drive our robots on the floor using our tablet, Android phone or LEGO Mindstorms controller. One of the robots was a variation of our MoonBots robot so the kid driver could drive watching the robot’s camera output on our laptop.

One of our parents kept a tally on visitors to our station. We demoed to a total of 320 people at the Perot Museum. We got as many kids as we could to run our remote control enabled LEGO Mindstorms robots and gave the kids the opportunity to setup and run our robot missions under our guidance to give them the feel of competing in a FIRST LEGO League robot game. It was a fun day!

FLL Presentation to Students for College Week

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Matthew and Anthony ran the team’s solution to the 2012 First Lego League (FLL) robot game puzzle for students at Skaggs Elementary as part of its College Week celebration. They explained how they figured out the puzzles and answered student questions about FLL. They told them how being on a FLL team helps them try out careers in mechanical engineering, computer programming, the sciences and even management. They also can practice skills that are helpful for a variety of careers such as giving presentations, making posters, conducting research, brainstorming solutions and practicing teamwork.

Note: We had to crop the photos so that students were not recognizable.

Vote for FLL Founder Slingshot Water Purification Device

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from FIRST LEGO League HQ in Manchester, NH

Check out this short film on FIRST founder Dean Kamen’s Slingshot water purification device, which was produced and directed by FRC Game Design Committee member Paul Lazarus. The film is currently a semifinalist in the Focus Forward Film Competition, and the FIRST family can help name it an “Audience Favorite” by voting for it online. Watch the film, then click the “Vote Now” button that appears at the end – http://vimeo.com/focusforwardfilms/semifinalists/51890022

Community outreach to Troop 219 on Oct 8th

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Our team visited Boy Scout Troop 219 at Christ Church in Plano TX on October 8th 2012. Troop 219 is Model Scout Matthew’s boy scout troop. The Beaver patrol asked us to help them with their robotics theme this month. After introductions, SPL Alan sent the troop off to explore the 3 stations our team setup for them:

1. An introduction to Lego NXT Mindstorms station. Model Scout Katie went through the basic parts of a robotics system using a standard Lego educational kit.

2. Our robotics solution to the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) 2011 Food Factor Challenge. Model Scouts Anthony and Walter ran this station. We brought our foam-based travel FLL table so the robot had a bit of trouble navigating the different surface but most of the missions worked.

3. A station with a variety of Lego NXT Mindstorms based robots that the team members have built. Matthew, Veronica and Dr. Michaud ran this station. Matthew also showed the NXT-G programming interface.

Selected photo of our community outreach event are below.

Dr Michaud introduces the Model Scout Robotics Team to Troop 219.

Robotics Station 1:

Robotics Station 2: First Lego League Robot Game Model Scout Robotics solution to 2011 Food Factor

First Lego League Demo at Troop 219

Robotics Station 3: Line Following, Robotic Gadgets and Intro to NXT-G Programming

Matthew ready to present at the line following and gadget station

Robotics Station 3 Veronica, Matthew and Coach Patrick demo line following and robotics gadgets.

Moon Day booth success!

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The whole Model Scout Robotics family (scouts, parents and and coaches) had fun at Moon Day at Frontiers of Flight Museum on July 21st. I’ll post photos and video when I get them from parents.

Moon Day is a local event that celebrates the anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon on July 20, 1969. Model Scout Robotics ran the Circle 10 Boy Scout booth and our team’s booth — we were busy! The scouts took several breaks from our booth to visit other booths and take part in the youth activities. Each team member got a Lunar Sample Bag from the museum staff with lots of space related goodies. (The team van now sports a NASA sticker. )

At our booth, the scouts shared their adventures and successes as a North Texas student robotics team. Showed other kids and adults some of our team NXT Lego Mindstorm creations. The younger kids loved watching us rerun our First Lego League 2011 robot, ScoutBot, doing the challenges. The older kids liked running our tele-operated robots(claw, forklift) . We were simulating control on Earth of 2 robots on the Moon. Our coach controlled his NXT robot on the museum floor via bluebooth using Android phone app.

Our team mom was busy too – publicizing the new BSA STEM Nova awards that encourage youth to explore STEM subjects in the boy scout program and the First Lego League robotics program open to youth teams age 10 to 14 in North Texas.

Matthew got interviewed for a story on local youth robotics.

The team parents’ ran the booth part of the time so scouts could tour the other booths at Moon Day and attend a couple of classes on Moon research and making artificial moon dust. Matthew and Anthony got to touch a real moon rock.

The museum put all of the robot groups in the same floor area, so it was easy to talk shop with the other teams. We visited with the other FIRST LEGO League team at the event, Iron Reign of Dallas. They were at the Dallas Personal Robotics Groups booth. They brought the Moonbots 2011 landscape and their robot.

Our booth was between to the Dallas Mars Society and Dallas Personal Robotics Group. It was cool that the Dallas Area Rocketry club was across the aisle from us too.

Dallas Mars Society brought their Mars Curiosity rover model and their Mars landscape. They gave us tips on making a moonscape inexpensively. We liked their rover’s camera system — wireless, full color display and the small camera can run on 9volt battery. It is a Lorex LW1001. Our coach is buying our team one of these cameras. It might come in handy for Moonbots Phase II.

It was quite a day. We provided community service to Circle 10 and the community, got a team field trip, practiced our speaking and presentation skills to get ready for upcoming FLL season and got some great tips that will help us in Moonbots Phase II, if we make the finals.

Model Scout Robotics will be at Moon Day

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Model Scout Robotics will celebrate Moon Day on Saturday July 21^st 2012 at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field Airport. You can find us at the Circle 10 Council Boy Scout booth at the event. Here’s the event flyer if you want to come: Moon Day 2012 at Frontiers of Flight Museum

We will be showing some of our robotic creations, telling other kids how to get started in robotics and showing our entry in the Moonbots 2012 competition. The Circle 10 booth is also showing BSA’s new STEM NOVA awards for Cub, Boy Scouts and Venturer scouts. Robotics is one of the award’s concentration areas.

Of course, the team will check out the other cool booths. Moonbots has put us in Astronomy and Space Exploration mode.

Model Scouts visits Pack 79

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Team Model Scouts setup and ran two stations on robotics at Pack 79’s meeting on May 5th. We ran a station on First Lego League Robot Game. We also ran a station on robotic gadgets, robotic line following, sensors and attachments. Everything ran well except our HiTec compass sensor. It was not working reliably. We suspect the iron rebar in the concrete floor interfered with the sensor.