Lego Meeting Summary: 4/6/2014

Hey, Brickbusters!
We started off with practicing the Robot design speech. Through this process, we edited our script and added/ subtracted a few lines. After practicing the speech for about 3 times, we split off- doing work assigned to each group. The younger ones helped select some core value pictures for our team, while the older ones worked on perfecting the missions to the best possible. We also worked on redesigning our Robot design board and concluded on what to improve from previous experiences. Some reminders for next class are:

• Remember to review your questions; they are posted on a Google docs document which has been shared to all team members.
• The older ones have to write about a particular section in The World Festival Team Information Sheet and send it to the team.
• Finish commenting the programs and send them to Shane for printing.

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!
Samarth

Meeting April 5th, 2014

Hello followers,

We recently had a meeting, our second after Spring Break. Shane and Mukund were working on the missions, perfecting them for the World Festival. We also practiced attatching and detatching all of the attatchments for the missions. Near the end of the meeting, we commented the remaining programs and got ready to complete the programming board for tomorrow.

Unfortunately, Srikar and Samarth was unable to make it to our meeting, but the younger ones practiced the Robot and Programming speech and they wrote down captions for the storyboard, about places that we visited as a team, and places that we volunteered at. 

The major things we need to do now are:
- Practice the skit
- Clean up the mission and project boards
- Practice the new robot design presentation
- Run through the missions competition style and make them more consistent

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

BrickBusters Meeting: 4/3/14

Hey readers,

We recently had a meeting, our first after Spring Break. For the World Festival, we are required to make a mini-presentation for Robot Design Judging. Shane and Mukund were hard at work to finish it, and at the end of the meeting, they were able to complete it.

Unfortunately, Shaun was unable to make it to our meeting, but the girls worked on what we did for outreach in our season. They wrote down everything we have done for outreach and created a timeline listing everything we have done.

Samarth and Srikar ran through our completed missions a few times, and worked on commenting the final program that needed commenting. The mission they were commenting ran through 100% perfectly multiple times, without a hitch.

The major things we need to do now are:
- Practice the skit
- Clean up the mission and project boards
- Practice the new robot design presentation
- Run through the missions competition style and make them more consistent

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

- Mukund Madhusudan

Presenting at the Findley Elementary School Science Fair with V-Cube FTC

Hello readers,

Our team was invited to present our robot, project and core values to students at the Findley Science Fair. We talked to many students, some who have done FLL in the past, or some who have not even heard of it. We also talked to parents and we tried to get students interested in FLL next year. We presented our robot by running a demo EV3 robot with a simple program that would make it continuously stay within a black oval. Students were intrigued about how the robot worked, such as how the motors drove 4 wheels, how the color sensor worked, and how the programming software controlled the robot. We talked to them about what FLL is, the parts of FLL and who can form a team. We even went around the Science Fair projects and talked to some of the students about projects related to what we were doing in FLL, and told them about FLL. It was a great experience, and we thank the school for inviting us to present there with V-Cube FTC!

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!

-Shane Puthuparambil

Presenting at OMSI to the Jr. FLL Teams - March 9th, 2014

Our team was invited to present at the Jr. FLL competition at OMSI on Sunday! We graciously accepted the invitation, as it would be a great way to encourage aspiring "FLLers" to join FLL after their Jr. FLL experience. Mukund, Medini, Suhani, Shaun and Sriya were the team members who went with our coaches to present.  

We were able to do great outreach to the future FLL students, and we were able to describe our project and the robot to the various Jr. FLL teams that were there. Mukund went around and also interviewed some teams about their projects. The theme was just like FLL's Nature's Fury theme, it was called "Disaster Blasters". The teams needed to pick a natural disaster to research on and help prevent with a unique solution. There were some very cool projects, like a force field generating LEGO mechanism.

In the end of the competition, we handed out medals to the Jr. FLL teams. It was a fun day for the Jr. FLL teams and the members of the BrickBusters that were there. We were really grateful that we were invited for to showcase FLL at the Jr. FLL competition, and we hope to do outreach like this even after FLL is over.

Thanks, and Go BrickBusters!