OT - Peter having State FLL competition today

[RickB]

Our son Peter is right now this very second at the WA State FLL competition, the first part is the presentation.
He did NOT want mom and dad there for that part, so we are going to the afternoon session.
That's where they compete on the tables to get their robot to perform tasks and return home.
It's a big day for Peter, he's had newspaper stories and school district messages and a story on the website about him so he's feeling pretty good.
Now it's time to (as he say's a lot these days) "Get 'Er Done!"

One cool thing is there is a prize and cash for "Best new invention" and he has created one that's gotten some attention.
It would be great to get something to put up for college for this smart young man we are raising.
I made copies of the stories and put them up on Picasa:

Peter Bastedo's Robotics Competition

 

[Billm]

That is great Rick-
Hope that he does well!
Bill

 

[startech47]

It won't be long before he is competing at the FRC level. We are 2 weeks into the 6 week build cycle. Congrats.

 

[RickB]

Yes he will turn 14 next month and enter high school in the fall.
FLL cut off is 14 years old IIRC.

 

[aeronca65t]

Excellent! It's cool to see others involved in FIRST.

Linda and I are FLL judges. We just worked our New Jersey state competition in mid-December.

I've been a tech-mentor with our local FRC team since '98. Our team is ~MORT Team #11~ so obviously, we're one of the "originals".

We're also in the 2nd week of the build. So far, things are looking good, but it's that last week of "crunch time" that really seems to get all the technical ducks in a row.

One of the cool things for us is that Bart Kamen lives fairly close to us so he usually stops by at least once a year (he looks just like Dean).

 

[RickB]

Really cool, it's great seeing others helping these guys develop in science and technology.
Peter's team got 24that the table with a score of 125.
The awards are being given now so I'll update later.

 

[startech47]

Chantilly Robotics Team 612
6th year as a Mentor
Up at 0500 at the school at 1400 home at 1800

 

[aeronca65t]

Really cool, it's great seeing others helping these guys develop in science and technology.
Peter's team got 24that the table with a score of 125.
The awards are being given now so I'll update later.

Good luck! Handing out awards is one the best parts for me. Great to see all those smiles and high-fives!

Chantilly Robotics Team 6126
6th year as a Mentor
Up at 0500 at the school at 1400 home at 1800

Oh, I get <span style="text-decoration: underline">that</span>!...<span style="font-weight: bold">real</span> well! I've been at Mt. Olive High School at midnight on a Sunday night......with 40 other people, all working on the 'bot.
We'll be at the S. Carolina Regional this year again (but not sure if I can join them this time). Will you guys be there? (we've won this regional in the past).

One of the other things I always do is make acrylic trophies for FLL (using my CNC machine with engraving software).
Been doing it for at least seven years now.
Here's some I made last month.

 

[startech47]

612 will be at DC and Chesapeake/Baltimore this year. One of the teams activities is hosting a FLL regional. It is great fun watching their excitement and starting the FLL students down the science engineering path.

 

[RickB]

Well that was quite a day.
Peter learned a couple inevitable things.
First was that the thing that seems cool out where you come from might not look so great compared to things at a higher level. His reaction was positive, a challenge to step up his game.

Second was that he needs to be more assertive with his team, turns out the teams that did way better all used the ideas he has been trying to get the team to adopt. All the younger guys wanted to do things their way and it turned out to not be as great as they thought.

Now Peter wants to give his team some lessons.
It will turn out that things will improve for the team - these guys are all first time in robotics and most of them have never competed before in anything so we are very proud of them.