Rise of the Machines: Close Up Tuesday 13 December

In view of next year's FLL theme on the elderly, you might like to check out 'Rise of the machines' on Close Up 13 December, about the use of a small army of 'healthbots' in NZ's largest retirement village:

Close Up: Tuesday, December 13 (TVNZ On Demand)

Testing the Robotic Hand - Science and Technology Movie

Image from The Future Channel

The Futures Channel: Testing the Robotic Hand

Designing a robotic hand that can match even some of the capabilities of the human hand is an engineering feat. But even that challenge can be met through an application of the basic problem solving strategies that every engineer learns.

Running time 2:46 minutes (You need Flash 9 or better to view this movie)

Our adventure at NZ's First Lego League Finals in Auckland

 

 

Well. we are back from our whirlwind trip to Auckland over the weekend for the National Finals of the FLL  competition, and you can pat yourselves on the back yet again. 

The team was placed 9th out of 20 teams in the Robot Game section, and gained 1st place and another Lego Trophy for your research in the Project section. It was great that each student was also given an FLL Medal!

You represented the school like true ambassadors and I was very proud to see how you interacted with others and had exemplary behaviour wherever you went. Well done!

The trip wouldn't have been possible without the support of our parents and wider community, who fundraised to help us get to Auckland. And special thanks must go to Jill and Tim who came and looked after us while we were away!

Talking to our new friends in Canada

Today we had a Skype call with another FLL team.... from Sudbury, Ontario, in Canada. They wanted to meet us and compare notes about the competition. It was great to meet them and find out how much we had in common. We talked about team roles, our projects, robot design, the team challenge, and which robot missions each team had been able to achieve. We wish them luck for their National Finals on 15 January!

Next week we will be welcoming some students from Freeville School, who are wanting to get started in robotics, and they are coming to see how it all works!

Rule clarification from Jason

I actually think we had this rule clear and correct anyway, didn't we! Well done for recognising it yourselves.

Hi there all NZ FLL teams,

There is a minor rule clarification I need to make regarding objects items entering base. We have been incorrectly advising teams they need to have mission models completely within base in order to score points where relevant (e.g. fish, refrigerated trailer etc.)

Rule 21 clearly defines the term “IN” which is used in mission text such as “The trailer in Base is worth 12 POINTS.” There are no other rules that conflict or override thus any object robot or otherwise breaching the Base volume (marked outline with 40cm height) are considered “IN”. Please note if an object is being carried inside a container the object itself must have entered the Base volume since objects are ruled on independent of each other.

At all 4 regional events in New Zealand consistent refereeing has been applied and teams were advised to bring mission models completely into base but not penalised if the model was around ½ way in base and in all cases I recall they were anyway. Some teams adapted to the advice and brought models completely into base and are commended for doing this.

The NZ Championship event on 27 November will have correct “IN” ruling applied.

Feel free to ask any questions and my apologies for not realising this earlier however I feel having all 4 regionals using consistent incorrect ruling was fair and did not alter the results.

Best Regards,

Jason Kyle, Kiwi FIRST

Typical scores in this year's FLL

I thought you'd find this discussion thread of interest, regarding the scores being attained in the preliminary rounds of the competition in the USA.

Please keep an eye on the Robot Game updates, that are still coming through. We need to be complete in our understanding.

Auckland local FLL Competition news article

I thought you might be interested in this article about this Saturday's FLL competition, and an Auckland school's involvement:

Pupils are robot ready

Food Factor® Tournament Video: What is FLL® and Core Values

An excellent new video about FLL has been released - I wish it had been available a few months ago! Please take note of what 'First' and STEM' stand for. Listen carefully to what the different Values really mean. We could be asked about any of these.