International First Lego League
On Saturday I was in Duxford to judge technical robot design for the Eastern region First Lego League competition.
Having read the briefing notes the night before, I felt the challenge was probably beyond me! In 8 weeks, outside of school, building a Mindstorms robot to autonomously accomplish 9 missions in two and a half minutes is an impressive accomplishment. Luckily, some of the NanoQuest missions turned out to be easier than I'd initially assumed, but it was still a very hard task. But a surprisingly large number of teams turned out excellent robots which performed, in some cases, stunningly well. Kudos to all the teams! Judging was great fun, and it was good to hear the kids talking through their designs and being so enthused about engineering.
This is the baby brother competition to the First Robotics challenge, but seems to manage a more international presence. Hopefully some of the FLL teams will be able to have a go at the major challenge when they're a bit older; I hope things have got a little easier than they were for the Hills Road Sixth Form College team a few years ago, who overcame a wide range of extra challenges due to being non-US entrants.
Having read the briefing notes the night before, I felt the challenge was probably beyond me! In 8 weeks, outside of school, building a Mindstorms robot to autonomously accomplish 9 missions in two and a half minutes is an impressive accomplishment. Luckily, some of the NanoQuest missions turned out to be easier than I'd initially assumed, but it was still a very hard task. But a surprisingly large number of teams turned out excellent robots which performed, in some cases, stunningly well. Kudos to all the teams! Judging was great fun, and it was good to hear the kids talking through their designs and being so enthused about engineering.
This is the baby brother competition to the First Robotics challenge, but seems to manage a more international presence. Hopefully some of the FLL teams will be able to have a go at the major challenge when they're a bit older; I hope things have got a little easier than they were for the Hills Road Sixth Form College team a few years ago, who overcame a wide range of extra challenges due to being non-US entrants.