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Congratulations to all the teams, judges, referees, and other volunteers that attended the FLL Qualifier at Kell High School today. We have our first results for the 2010 Body Forward Season. Here are the results:
Champions (Top 3 Overall)
2895 - Radically Original Builders of Technology
121 - Transformers
149 - RoboKids
Research Project / Presentation
2014 - Cyber Swat
2004 - Blazer Bots
1883 - Bio Bots
Robot Design / Technical
28 - Brick Busters
3857 - Wildcats #1
6148 - Dragons
Core Values / Teamwork
7945 - Lego Legionaires
4005 - Shock Doctors
116 - Chalker Blockers #1
Performance - Top Score of the day - 295
Team 28 - Brick Busters scored a High Score of 295.
I got an update on judging and awards for our regional that I wanted to pass along this fine Veterans Day.
Glod bless all of our service men and ewmen and the people that support them.
We will be giving, along with each of the other regional qualifiers:
1st,2nd, 3rd Overall Research Project & Innovative Solution
1st only (top score) for Robot Performance (It is included in the Overall Robot score)
The Super Regionals will be different. How, I don't know.
We will use a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 distribution of weight for each category.
The Project is 1/3 of the team's total score.
The Teamwork/Core Values is 1/3 of the team's total score.
The Robot is 1/3 of the team's total score. That makes the Robot Performance 1/6 and the judged Robot portion 1/6.
We will advance 1/3 of teams attending a Qualifier to a Super Regional.
There will be 2 Alternate teams in addition to the 1/3 should there be available room. The Alternates MIGHT go to a Super Regional and should not take apart their robot, but there is no guarantee...
There will bw 3 Super Regionals. Ours in Warner Robins, the other two in North Georgia. (In/near Atlanta)
Jeff Rosen will place some of the Alternate Teams (possibly the highest scoring) in Super Regionals as well as the numbers dictate.
I debated whether or not to share this video, but since it is public I think it makes an amazing point worth sharing... The White Wolves have put together a heck of a sequence! Kudos to them and their creative genius.
Initially, I was hesitant to post this... afterall, for some teams, especially NEW teams, you might just think, well, heck, we can't do all that! There's no WAY we can beat that! Might as well not even bother... right?
WRONG!!! That's not even the point!
Imagine you're on the White Wolves... let's pretend maybe you're a new team member, or even, let's say you're a new coach of an established team... would you advise AGAINST posting this? Why or why not?
Why post such a video? To brag? To gloat? To show how awesome your solution is? Why do it now? Entire WEEKS (in some cases a full month) before some will even go to their first competition?
Maybe it is some of those very worst of human reasons, but maybe it is because you want to be challenged yourself, and you want others to benefit from your work to see what else can be done?
Perhaps they were Jeffersonian in their post.
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Isaac McPherson, 1813 as cited in Kock & Peden, 1972
On the one hand, they could have kept their mission solutions a secret and saved them for their "big day". Surely, they will likely do very well in the competition, provided they can achieve a similar run...
And this is where the counter-intuitive notion of "gracious professionalism" comes in... By publishing this video and thereby releasing their trade secrets and IP (Intellectual Property as you should now know if you've been researching patents) they are paving the way for even more innovation and creative solutions. Afterall, as Lightning McQueen quipped in Cars, (paraphrased here) "What's the fun of beating the competition by a full lap?" I mean, 400 points with 40+ seconds to spare? We want some drama, right? :-)
Anyway, my hat is off to the White Wolves. That took some pretty good engineering, some great building (I especially like the use of gravity) and is an excellent example of good use of strategy in combining missions, sequencing and use of strategic objects as "leave-behinds". Remember, the rules say nothing about you not being able to do that!
Speaking of "Gracious Professionalism", (be sure and watch the video) ask your team what they'd do or say or how they'd react if they saw such a display during one of their rounds... Then ask them about what they'd say or do with a team that didn't even complete one mission, or didn't want to come to the tournament... This is also something good to think about. Remember, you never know who could be a "mystery" judge, and the referees provide input into the overall teamwork scores, too.
If you haven't already, make sure you're team knows the FLL Core Values.
One more thing ... I heard from another partner that used to tell parents of team members that they had three jobs to do at a tournament:
1. Beam with pride. And take lots of pictures... (I find this one to be practically automatic.) 2. Cheer! Cheer for all the teams! (Especially the new teams and young ones...) 3. Talk to the other teams. (It's great for all teams to be able to share their stories and describe what they've done with both robot and project.)
Here's a great video out of Hong Kong (I believe) that shows one possible solution (there are millions!) to each of the Body Forward Missions. Let your mind piece these possibilities together in different orders to see how one can achieve 400!
