Happy Veterans Day! On this long
weekend, I wanted to send out a few more reminders as you all prepare for the
upcoming tournaments in the next 2-3 weeks!
In this email: 1. In case you missed it…2. Forms, 3.
How Qualifiers work, 4. Things to work on
1. In case you missed it,
here’s the link to the invite from the Robot Geeks coaches to a party next
Sunday! http:// http://southdakotarobotics.com/coach_updates/2012_11_06.pdf
2. Don’t forget your
forms! Make sure to bring your forms to check in on the morning of your
registration, along with your payment of $25 for your team. Forms are at http://southdakotarobotics.com/fllcoach.php.
You’ll need a consent and release form for each participant, including coaches
and mentors. Please bring 4 copies of your Team Profile sheet, one for each set
of judges and 1 to show the MC when you do your robot runs.
3. I’ve had a few questions on
how it all works as far as Qualifying Events. Here’s a quick recap: All
teams must compete on the Qualifying level. Teams cannot compete in more than
one event unless there is room at a later date, then the tournament
director has the discretion to let you attend “for fun” but your scores will not
count and you cannot win any trophies. The first event you attend is your
official event. At each event, there will be awards (Champion’s Award, and
1st place in Robot Performance, Robot Design, Project, and Core
Values) and in addition to those awards, the top 54% of the attending teams will
receive a “Golden Ticket” that allows them to register for the state
tournament. A team can win an award and not move on, and they can move on
without winning an award. The teams who get to move on must be
well-rounded and show excellence in all the areas of FLL. The awards
will simply go to the team that is the best at each of those areas.
Some of your co-coaches are
working to put together a secondary, just for fun event for teams that don’t
qualify for state so that everyone has a chance to compete again if they want
to. More details about that will be coming soon.
For the teams that move on to
state, you will have all of January to take the judge feedback into account and
work on the 2 extra pieces required for state, the Robot Design Executive
Summary and the Core Values Poster. Neither of those will be used at the
Qualifiers, but they will be at state. Directions for those will be in your
Golden Ticket Packets.
4. Things to work on –
others of you have asked “What should we be working on right now??” Just
remember, the prime thing is to have fun!! As long as the kids are having a
good time and learning about science along the way, you’re doing a great job.
Here are some ideas for what to cover in these last few weeks:
1. Missions – you will be
doing 3 rounds on the robot game table. Make sure you have a few missions that
work!
2. Project – make sure
you’ve completed all the aspects of the project (identify a specific senior
mentor, identify your problem, create an innovative solution, and share that
solution with someone outside your team before you attend a tournament) in time
for your Qualifier. If that means you haven’t had your kids share the solution
with anyone outside your team yet, make sure to schedule someone to come in or a
time for your team to go somewhere talk about it.
3. Project – make a
presentation. After you have all your aspects ready, you need a fun way to tell
the judges about it. It can be a skit, a Power Point, a song, anything!
Remember teams have only 5 minutes from when they enter the room to do
their presentation. That includes set up time! Coaches are also not allowed to
help with the set up, so make sure if you have tech, like a Power Point or
video, that the kids can get it running on their own.
4. Core Values – practice
some teamwork activities. When you come to the events, you team will go to a
room with the judges and complete a teamwork activity, an instant challenge with
a only brief directions but plenty of room for the kids to show how they really
work together (will they fight, get along, will a leader emerge, will it be
chaos, will they respect each other, will they argue?). The judges will then
ask them a series of questions about how their season went. You don’t have to
bring anything specific to this event, but it never hurts to have the kids
familiar with the question and answer session they will have to face.
5. Robot Design – this is
where the teams will meet with a set of judges and do questions and answers
about their robot. The judges will ask questions like how did you decide to
build this, and what your design process was. They are looking for a clear
plan. Although cool robots and attachments are always nice, the judges are most
interested in the teams having planned and tested their ideas throughout the
season. The best way to prepare for this is to have the teams make some lists
of things they tried and that didn’t work, and what the ultimately decided upon
and why. They should be able to talk about their robot and their entire season
from a design stand point.
As always I’m here to help! Don’t
hesitate to ask questions of me anytime!
GO FLL!!!
Love Always,
Robyn
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