Lightweight, Portable Practice / Demonstration FLL Table

Several of you have asked about the STOW-or-GO tables that I made for this year's competition to use in the practice areas and upstairs in the technical judging rooms. 

I got the idea from several different places, but the best "all-in-one" set of instructions I have found is from the Inventioneers!   http://www.theinventioneers.com/foamtabledirectory.html

You can use the "cache" feature of Google to see it as it was.

I normally wouldn't do this, as I would rather people go directly to the site, but for the sake of the Inventioneers' pocketbooks, I'm letting Google bear the cost of bandwidth for them by re-posting them here.

Here are the instructions from the Inventioneers FIRST LEGO League "STOW-or-GO" portable, foldable less than 10 pound table.

Inventioneers STOW-or-GO Pictures

Inventioneers STOW-or-GO Instructions

Additional Instructions and Diagrams.

21st Century Curricula – Integrating FIRST

I’ve been asked by several folks to share some of the more useful sites / links that I use to gather STEM, SET or FIRST and LEGO related curricula from.  So here they are!

Peer-Reviewed Robotics Lesson Plans:  http://robotics.nasa.gov/rcc/ - The NASA collaboration portal for all things robotics, Robotics Curriculum Clearninghouse (RCC).  The RCC has a mission to connect teachers everywhere with high-quality, peer-reviewed robotics curricula. The resources we feature range from full courses to single lesson plans that can be readily incorporated into classroom activities.

School Friendly Videos:  http://www.teachersdomain.org – A school friendly repository of videos and content related to teaching various concepts.  FIRST Robotics and LEGO specific videos here.  
http://www.p21.org/ - Partnership for 21st Century Learners.  Starting 6 years ago this organization produced the Framework for 21st Century Learning (where the Three ‘R’s get re-defined and meet the four ‘C’s) and the  MILE guide and self-assessment for determining where your program is at and what it needs to do to get 21st Century Ready.

http://thepartnershipfor21stcenturyskills238.eduvision.tv – Proceedings from the latest Partnership for 21st Century Learning.

Book:  21st Century Skills – Re-thinking How Students Learn

http://www.solution-tree.com/Public/Media.aspx?ShowDetail=true&ProductID=BKF389
This anthology introduces the Framework for 21st Century Learning from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills as a way to reenvision learning and prepare students for a rapidly evolving global and technological world. This dynamic new framework promotes innovation through critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and technology integration, while building on mastery of core content and background knowledge.

Lastly, there are three notable states that seem to have really integrated FIRST into their schools.  Minnesota, Michigan and Oregon.

Minnesota’s integration of FIRST as part of their 21st Century Learner and STEM initiatives

• http://www.scimathmn.org/mnstemnet.htm
• http://www.incommons.org/en-us/node/798/activity
• http://www.competitivewf.com/blog/?cat=4
• http://www.getstem-mn.com/Pages/STEMNews.aspx
• http://www.iteaconnect.org/Publications/STEMconnections/STEMconnections11-10.htm

Michigan’s - http://www.firstinmichigan.org/

Oregon’s - http://ortop.org/

Various Building Links, Tools & Inspiration

Generally Interesting Sites for NXT-based LEGO building

• http://sariel.pl/tools/ratios/ - LEGO Gear Ratio Calculator & Building Tool
• http://www.battlebricks.com/ - Latest Model is a “LEGO 3-D Printer”!
• http://roboticrealm.blogspot.com/ - All kinds of interesting posts, from Gearing to LEGO Digital Designer
• http://thenxtstep.blogspot.com/ - All things NXT!
• http://edventures.com/imssc/nsimssc/ - Supplier of STEM kits, labs and curriculum.
• http://www.teachergeek.com/ - Supplier of Geek kits, labs and curriculum.
• SIEMENS Corporation support of STEM Programs:  The STEM Institute - http://stem.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?event=showContent&c=48

Mining the Internet with Google

I wanted to share with others how I find some of what I share via del.icio.us on the Internet.  I mine the Internet using
google.com with the advanced search options.  I often find full classes, or lesson plans this way.

I use the “filetype:” syntax to narrow my search to downloadable filetypes, like Adobe Portable Document format (PDFs) and Microsoft PowerPoint files (PPTs). 

This is what my query looks like when I’m looking for PDF files OR PPT slide decks related to “NXT tips.”

The Pipe symbol “|” is achieved by pressing the <shift> and <backslash> (usually above the <ENTER> key) and generally means “OR” in many search systems.

I use the “site:” syntax to narrow the search results to a specific domain type, like .edu or .org.

Here is an example.

Happy Googling!