Winter Camps

Happy Thanksgiving Week everyone!  Winter Camp registration will open on Thanksgiving day at www.InitiateLearning.net Be sure to sign up early because spots will go fast!  Check out the amazing line up:

Robot Competition Trophy Winners

Since the beginning of August I have been meeting with 15 fantastic humans ages 8-14.  We met once, twice, even three times a week as we all learned what First Lego League (FLL) was together.  It was a giant learning curve.  None of us had ever participated or seen what happens in FLL but we gave it our all.  Previously just teachers in the same building teaching the same subject to different age groups, Ms. Allshouse and I became teammates in coaching our two teams to success.  Many of our students hadn't touched a LEGO EV3 robot before.  Some students had minimal experience with the robot and a couple students had explored programming.

Through our season we learned to build and code EV3 robots, we researched and developed innovative solutions for long term space travel, and we focused on teamwork, coopertition (cooperation and competition smashed together - it's a FLL thing), and mostly FUN!  We ate crickets of all varieties as one team researched the sustainability of crickets for protein in space.  We invited friends, family, and professionals from a variety of fields to listen to our research presentation and share their feedback and knowledge.  We learned.  We grew.  We worked hard.

All our effort led to an amazing experience at the Denver North Regional Qualifier this last Saturday.  Throughout the day the excitement rose as students, parents, and coaches realized that both our teams had a chance for some real success.  The adrenaline shot to space when the Techno Trees team launched into first place in the Robot Game. Universal S.T.E.M. had judges writing puns about jumping out of their seat for an innovative solution for long term space travel: Crickets for Protein! At the end of the day this amazing group of hard workers took home 3 trophies. Universal STEM took the first place Project trophy, Techno Trees took the first place Robot Performance trophy and the second place Robot Design trophy.  Universal STEM also ranked 4th in Robot Performance. What a fantastic way to finish the season!

I couldn't be more proud of all the hard work and dedication these families, students, mentors, coaches, and administrators put in to create two trophy winning teams.  Thank you, from the bottom of my heart to everyone who put in hours of time and resources to help us along our FLL journey.  Many of our students are already planning big for next year.

As a side note: yes, that is my child pouting in the last team picture with the trophies.  He cried the whole way home.  It was a long day (nearly 11 hours when it was said and done).  It was his first experience with a team in an environment with so much adrenaline (as it was with many of our students).  And though he was completely exhausted and ready to go home he was sad that it was over, sad that there were no more practices ("I don't even care that the practices are on Saturday anymore!"), sad that he had built a relationship with teammates and now that could change ("Can we please keep the same people on the same teams next year?"), and sad that his once hated "itchy" shirt now held so much meaning that he wanted to sleep in it and wear it every day to remember his joy and pride in participating in such an amazing experience.  That is why I left him in the photo with his sad face, because it tells such a strong story of growth for the youngest member of our team. I love him with all my heart and I'm proud of his accomplishments. 

September Robotics

We are having a blast in our Robotics classes at the Options School.  My younger classes are learning about simple machines and why they are important in order to build robots and my MakerSpace class is exploring the Engineering Design Cycle with POCKET ROCKETS.  What could be more fun than watching something explode in school?  Be sure to check out the short video below!

Robotics 4 - EdRobo Claw

This afternoon was the best camp day yet!  We all successfully built the Ed Robo Claw.  We had fun driving our robo claws with the remote control.  The kids set up their own game where they had to pick up pieces and deliver them to either the recycling center or the garbage dump.

 Then we started a new programming challenge. Using EdBlocks we attempted to program our Robot Claw to deliver a container of toxic waste to a secure location and return back to camp. 

We got really close to being successful with many different groups but had to cut time short in order to clean up successfully.  Since we now know we can clean up successfully we can have a little more time working out our code challenge tomorrow.  Here is a speed build of the Robo Claw and some class videos.  Try, try again is certainly the motto of robotics! I encourage you to try again at home and see if you can figure out the code.