The Big DumpTruck

I am full of roast beast (thanks to Mr. Dump and JP for picking out a lovely cut of beast, and Mr. Dump for seasoning it and putting it in the oven). I could use a nap, because someone who shall remain nameless refused to sleep in this morning. *sigh*

I would write more, but I'm trying to move a bunch of images over to my new photo frame (I never thought I'd want one of those until I just started thinking about it. And because all the pictures I have at work are old and it's just way too much effort to print some to take in to work to replace in my frames. Now I just replace the files in my frames! Brilliant!

Oh, so you are probably wondering what I did on the days leading up to today (which, by the way, is a let down compared to the wonderfulness of the days leading up to today). Well, Junior and I spent 2 days building the Lego Christmas train that I got on sale. It arrived on Saturday, and we built it most of the day Saturday and finished it yesterday. It's a really fantastic train, but doing a thousand piece puzzle trying to find the pieces. We used every bowl/container we had to put the pieces in. You get a dozen bags of Legos, but the bags aren't broken down by train car. So you put everything in bowls so you can paw through it. But I think the final product is worth the effort.

Labels: Lego, trains, Xmas

The kids did great on Saturday - they ended up placing 5th out of 36 teams (they were in 3rd after the qualifying rounds - simply amazing to me). What got me excited is that the team I wanted to win if we couldn't was the Pink Flamingos from Fall Brook School, and THEY DID IT! This was the team that we beat in the finals last week - they only lost to us by 5 points. I would say that placing 2nd last week and 1st this week makes them the team to beat!

The kids are all bummed that we hadn't signed them up for more tournaments, but back during signups, we didn't even think we'd be able to score for more than 2 challenges, so we signed up for the 2 closest tournaments just to give them a taste of it. We had no idea they would be winners/contenders.

This gives them plenty of time to work on additional challenges and the "presentation" requirement. They have to come up with some kind of project on renewable energy. Knowing these guys, it will probably be a good one.

Labels: Lego

Labels: award, Lego, Leominster, photos, Robots

Okay, maybe not the world, but they are invading my life. You see, I signed on to coach Junior's FIRST LEGO League Robotics team. They started a league at his elementary school this year (and one other in town - it will expand out next year) and he's on team Funny Bones. Our team, plus the 4 others from our school and the 4 teams from the other elementary school attended the Mindstorm Madness tournament in Shrewsbury yesterday, 6 weeks or so after our team formed. We were up against 17 other teams, some of them middle school teams who had better robots and competition experience. Our plucky little robot soldiers, after 9 challenge rounds, were seeded FIRST(!!) for the playoff rounds. FIRST! Our average score over the nine rounds was the highest! Was that even possible? I can tell you, I almost cried I was so proud of these kids, and so shocked. When I went into the gym during the break and saw the list of teams, and saw #7 listed first, I refused to believe it was a ranking. But it was.

So we explained to the kids that really, that was the highlight of the tournament, because that's the REAL show of who did the best. Anyone could get knocked out of the semi-finals by just having a robot malfunction.

Except they didn't have a robot malfunction. They won each of their semi-final rounds, and won the final against a team from the other Leominster elementary school by a mere 5 points. We won the tournament, the whole thing. And we also got the robot performance award. Our simple little last-generation robot was a tireless little engine that could.

To say I was beside myself about the whole day is an understatement. 7 of the 9 Leominster teams made the elite 8, and 3 of the final 4 and both of the finalists were from our schools. I don't think I'll ever see such a thing again, and I will be happy HOWEVER they do at the Leominster Tournament this week. Funny Bones rule!

Labels: Lego, Leominster, Robots, school