Details: It's early December, and you know what that means - the FIRST LEGO League teams are having their regional competitions. Here, we have a peek into the competitions held in Davenport, Iowa, USA. This year's challenge is called "Body Forward", which is health-themed. As always, we wish the best of luck to all of the teams.
Details: Ever wonder why there aren't more FIRST LEGO League style challenges? Well, now there's one more: the Moonbots Challenge. Entries have already closed for this, but the competition was kicked off at this year's FLL World Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Full info about the contest is at the links above, but you can also see pictures of the kickoff event and the rest of the FLL World Festival in Joe Meno's flickr set. There are hundreds of photos there, but don't miss the Moonbots challenge layout.
I had every intention of trying to get back to regular posts this week, but yesterday night, my internet connection went down.
On the bright side, there are a ton of new FIRST LEGO League photos being uploaded by JR Hicks right now. The FIRST LEGO League regional competitions are underway - I'd like to congratulate all the teams that have made it to the next level of competition so far and wish good luck to all the teams competing in the near future. You can see JR Hicks' photosets (organized by team - these look like professional photos that were done to commemorate the event for the people involved, so they're a bit more focused on the teams themselves than on the robots) at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrhicks_photos/collections/72157611017397854/
It's been a strange week in terms of LEGO® robotics - there haven't been many exciting robots built this week, but the FIRST Robotics World Festival event was quite the public showcase for many teams of young roboticists, and for the hobby aspect of robotics as well. The big news, though is the New FTC kit. FTC stands for FIRST Tech Challenge; in past years, VEX kits have been used instead of LEGO kits. I'm not sure who's manufacturing the new aluminum parts, but this is apparently a whole new system that works with the Education Edition NXT kit. This is a big deal, because the VEX kits were really remote-control toys and not preprogrammed autonomous bots. A new blog devoted to FTC has more details about this hybrid kit.
Details: Do you remember the Power Puzzle Theme of the current FIRST LEGO League competition? Well, an innovative robot that emerged this past week is a jarring thought experiment. After finding a way to quickly get a perfect score 3 months ago, the team decided to see if it was possible to have a robot jump over the wall and solve their competitor's "Power Puzzle" as well - all within the original time alloted. Surprisingly, they pull it off amazingly, and are able to do the entire thing with only the 3 motors in the LEGO® MINDSTORMS NXT kit. It does look like they used additional parts for the various modular frames that are added on for the various missions.
I'm pretty sure I've figured out the tricks here: They're using a light sensor to enhance a dead reckoning steering system by recalibrating when they hit darker spots in the competition mat. A number of large liftarm frameworks are used to actually do the specific tasks. Beyond the two motors used to move the robot around, a third is used to move an axle with two sets of three liftarms coming off of it. One of those liftarm sets connects to the visible large frame, but the other two are shorter and just there to "grab" the frames that move things. It's an interesting approach to modularity, but I can't help but wonder just how sturdy the whole thing is - would it work in situations where you need to go more than a few feet? In any case, this is impressive.
Details: This clever little animation is a fun way to get a feel for the various challenges in this year's FIRST LEGO LEAGUE competition. Although LEGO® Robotics kits (either the original Mindstorms kit with the RCX or the LEGO® MINDSTORMS NXT), this animation shows minifigs solving the challenge with vehicles you might find in any LEGO® town. The theme of this year's contest is "Power Puzzle", so most of the tasks for the robot to do have a power-saving or power-generating theme. FIRST and LEGO have been teaming up for these tournaments for several years now with the goal of getting kids (of roughly junior-high age) into robotics. While most of the kids choose to navigate the challenges using dead reckoning, they do get hands-on experience with programming and learn a few things about constructing a sturdy robot chassis. In any given year, there are a few teams that rise above the pack, trying out more complex robotics ideas out and solving all of the challenges in that year's contest. You should be able to find out if there is an open tournament in your area at http://www.firstlegoleague.org/Calendar.aspx?pid=210 , but most of the local level tournaments have already passed.
Details: NELUG (the New England LEGO Users Group), along with Manchester, New Hampshire, USA's SEE Science Center, LEGO, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), and CLD Consulting Engineers, built this enormous scale model of Manchester's Amoskeag Mills. There are many things to love in this model. Careful research was done to make this model as historically accurate to the late 1910's (when the Amoskeag mills were at their peak) as possible. With over 3 million LEGO bricks used, this is believed to be the largest minifig-scale LEGO model ever made. As you can see in some of the many pictures available, some of the individual buildings here are longer than most people are tall. As many details as possible were rendered in the 55:1 LEGO minifig scale. For more information, I recommend viewing the model at the links given above. There's a ton to take in - to be honest I haven't even found time to go through some of the photo galleries yet. By my count, there are 527 photos available!
On a personal note, I was very excited to see this model because I grew up near this area. I have been inside most of the mill buildings, some of which are not as well-kept now as they used to be, but some now hold a number of other businesses and such - including the SEE Science Center, which I loved visiting as a kid.
It's early December, and you know what that means - the FIRST LEGO League teams are having their regional competitions. Here, we have a peek into the competitions held in Davenport, Iowa, USA. This year's challenge is called "Body Forward", which is health-themed. As always, we wish the best of luck to all of the teams.
kit. It does look like they used additional parts for the various modular frames that are added on for the various missions. 
