Author: Tin Mints

On Wednesday night, we were given the opportunity to see Woodie Flowers speak at Hatboro Horsham High School! Woodie Flowers talked about education, specifically how it is important to integrate both STEM and the humanities into a curriculum. Additionally, he spoke about how humans do things that machines can’t do and how this will change in the future. It was a very interesting talk, and afterward we were able to meet him, talk with him about our team, and take a picture! Woodie Flowers is actually such a cool guy and an inspiration.

This past weekend, we traveled to North Brunswick to participate in Brunswick Eruption, hosted by Raider Robotics. We did very well this weekend- we made it to semi-finals with teams 1089 and 1279, who did great. It was a very eventful weekend, from battery leakage to Erin coming in second place for the Evil Sundae competition. We had so much fun at our first Brunswick Eruption and cannot wait to return next year!

Last weekend, we went to Wissahickon High School to compete in Ramp Riot for the second year. The drive team did awesome and Rosie did well too, but there were a few issues with the pistons that lift up the feeder. A few Girl Scouts came to the event, and Emily along with girls from teams 341 and 2016 showed them one of Miss Daisy’s past robot, the FTC arena, and a few matches. Afterward, we showed them the pits and Rosie, and one girl was very interested in joining our FLL team! At the end of qualification matches, our record was 6-1, and we were the fifth alliance captain, picking teams 316 and 1712. Although we worked hard and played well, we got out in quarterfinals. It was a great day nevertheless and we cannot wait for next year!

Happy Halloween from the Tin Mints! We hope everyone has a great Halloween this year! And we’ll see you tomorrow at Ramp Riot! (Also, this photo is from the Trunk or Treat we did last Saturday after Girl Power.)

We competed at Girl Power this weekend for the second year in a row. We had some trouble with our shooter because there were problems with our gearbox after being used all season. Despite this, our autonomous worked especially well, and when we weren’t working on the shooter, which was all but two matches, we were able to truss the ball. Our final record was 6-1, and we were the top-ranked alliance captain! We chose teams 222, 4637, and 3974, and because there were only fourteen teams at the event, we went straight to semi-finals. We moved onto finals in two matches. Finals, however, was tough. After losing our first match, we were determined to win the next one to stay in, but somehow our robot turned itself off, or another team did by accident, so we were dead halfway through the match. Even though there were some difficulties, it was an exciting day.

We competed at Duel on the Delaware, hosted by MOE and the Lunatecs, this past weekend in Carney’s Point, NJ. Rosie did great during the matches- her autonomous was beautiful. Our record after the Qualification Matches was 3-2. Although our rank was 10th, we were not chosen for alliance selection, but we were glad that we were the first backup robot. Congrats to the winning teams!

Last weekend we participated in the Battle O’ Baltimore. Rosie did very well- she completed her autonomous mode of moving forward and shooting into the high goal 100% of the time! We are improving on scouting; some girls and parents volunteered to scout for this event.
We made it to the quarter-finals, but unfortunately lost. The winners of the competition were teams 2537, 1885, 4945, and 422, and the runners-up were teams 836, 2528, 357, and 533. Great job to all the teams who participated!

This past Saturday we had the oppurtunity to go to the Ridley Park Victorian Fair. We demonstrated Rosie, sold a lot of brushel brushes and T-shirts, and talked about our team to everyone who walked by. We even sold a few flocks of flamingos, which is turning out to be a great fundraiser! There were several people who were very interested in our team and our accomplishments, and we even encouraged a few girls to try robotics out! All the girls and parents did a great job promoting our team and helping to run our table.

Last week we had a party where we made flamingos. We outlined, cut, and painted the flamingos, and they turned out even better than we hoped. We plan to use these flamingos as a fundraiser that we call “flocking.” Flocking is when you place flamingos on the lawns of family and friends and leave a note explaining that they must pay a certain amount to get the flamingos removed from their front yard or to have them placed on another person’s yard. We are hopeful that this fundraiser will be successful, and we look forward to flocking our first house!

We are so excited for the new challenge this year, titled “World Class Learning Unleashed.” Watch the teaser here:
http://www.firstlegoleague.org/challenge/2014fllworldclass

In honor of this season’s challenge, Jr. FLL created a desk and chair using LEGOs…

And FLL made a list of “what would make school better.”

The official release date for World Class is August 26th. We’re thinking that there will be plenty of color sensors for the girls to program!