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LEGO Junior Robotics Competition This Weekend
Neuropol writes "CNN tells us our favorite locking building block company, LEGO, is hosting a Junior Robotics Competition in Atlanta, GA this weekend. The event expects to pit hundreds of grade schoolers ages 9-14 against each other in a 9 task Olympic Style face-off with each teams robot. Twelve year old Taylor offers 'NASA works with a lot of robots and when you build a robot you need to know what goes in it,' says Taylor. 'And when you're working with FIRST LEGO you have to figure that out -- how to set stuff where it needs to go.' While this is too young for most of us to participate in, it's great to see the attention being focused on such a potentially great generation of robotics developers."
maybe one of them will come to build a time machine...so that i could join too.
Though I do like the basic blocks, my favorite set was the Space Police as a kid. How about you guys?
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While this is too young for most of us to participate in
9 to 14 years old? I think many here are eligible...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Lego League isn't the only competition in Atlanta right now, you know.
I thought this was kind of neat. From the CNN article:
The LEGO competition is the brainchild of Dean Kaman, inventor of the Segway scooter. It's part of his FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Championship -- a global robotics competition for middle school and high school students.
Good on him, I haven't heard much of him since his vaunted Segway scooter. That being said, I think that it'll help more people 'think outside of the box'. Imagine if you had started doing this sort of thing between the ages of 9 - 14; you'd either burn out and be sick of it, or you'd continue to build on your knowledge until your in university and can really compete/innovate!
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
The competition is intersting but isn't really anything new we have things like that up in Pittsburgh...
I want to see somebody make a 5 foot tall set of legos, to scale out of normal legos oo... Ahh I love recurrsion
Lego church from hell
Not quite my style, but damn- this is pretty cool. Not to mention friggin' huuuuge.
R(k)
Virtual LEGO
"Virtual LEGO introduces the reader to a suite of software that allows users to create and document computer-generated LEGO models. Written by maintainers of LDraw.org (the official hub of LEGO model-building software), the book includes coverage of popular freeware tools such as LDraw, MLCAD, L3P, L3PAO, LPub, POV-Ray, and MegaPOV. The CDROM contains all the software readers need to get started, all available LEGO parts models, and templates for building instruction layouts."
... builds other Lego Robots, subject to radio'd requests.
Then we can just ship it to Mars with a big pile of Legos. The Mars Lego Builder would build a Mars Explorer according to blueprints fromt Earth, and send it off to look around. When an unexpected event trashes the Lego Explorer, the Mars Lego Builder constructs another Explorer that allows for the event. Repeat until done.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
See here http://www.lego.com/eng/starwars/videogame/default .asp?bhcp=1 for a link to a videogame advertised in my local shopping centre - what the hell is the world coming to?
...welcome our new LEGO overlords.
A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's an erection for?
It's Lego, not Legos. We have this argument everytime Lego is mentioned in a post.
How many times do I have to tell you!
The blocks you could construct dinosaurs that moved and grasped is the set of blocks I liked most, next to construx.
I think Lego went too decorative with their highly specialized pieces. Instead of going specific, they should have went general... Pieces with dots on the side, so you could link pieces out on angles. You got your basic 4 directions: Up, down, left, right, but you could even throw in diagonals with extra pieces.
I just said,"Forget Lego", when they made all those fancy specialized pieces... Instead of stifiling creativity, they could have fostered it.
God spoke to me.
Finaly a way to combine my love of playing with legos , with my love of beating children .
Now thats irony(the use of beating)
All I need is to build a robot twelve year-old first.
Here are some ideas for other LEGO robotics competitions (these were mostly for HS students).
http://roboti.cs.siue.edu/competitions/
I participate in First Lego League every year and it is really fun. You and your team builds a robot, programs it in "MindCode" or "RoboLab" and runs it against various challenges. If you are luck enough to live in a state that does A "Division 3" highschool special tournament, you can program in any language you like. It's fun
"Love is like a trampoline, first it's like "SWEET!!" then it's like *BLAMM!*"
NOT TRUE! I coached a FLL team this year, it was a blast!
You can be involved by doing that. Our team made it to the State Competition but not beyond that. These kids do this all over the world, and the one the article is talking about is the world competition that is the best of the best of the best.
It is very cool stuff, the kids learn so much and do so much. I had 3rd graders writing algorithms and learning about code reuse and project management. Not to mention quite a few physics concepts.
Check out High TechKids.org
What you should expect as a coach FLL Coach:
What you should not expect:
Sadly, this event drew more fans than an Atlanta Hawks' game...
The slashblurb says that the competition was hosted by LEGO, but they only give some funding. The competition is put on by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), at the same time/building as the High School Robotics competition. More information about FIRST is available at http://www.usfirst.org
Lego is having the worst year ever and have to lay of a huge bunch of workers.
Seems the kids are more interested in computers than lego. And it seems the only way for lego to possibly survive is implementing these thing more effecient than earlier.
I was at the UK equivalent of this a few months back, definetely a great event to attend, and some really bright kids there who know their stuff.
I think they should do a scientific study to prove that kids who play with lego when they are young grow up able to apply knowledge better than kids who, say, play with Action Man all day. Lego is great stimulation for the mind. Just a theory.
Business Voyeur
Dean Kaman is doing more things. He just launched his Vex Robotics. This is the robotics kit that is a step up from LEGO Mindstorms. Essentially based on Dean Kaman's FIRST competition, this is a commercialized manufactured robotics kit.
I've just about finished assembling my first robot with the kit, and the kit is what I've been waiting for since I could solder stuff together (no soldering required). It's real metal parts and real radio control and soon real programming. Radio Shack is the exclusive outlet for these, and they sell all of the sensors, gears and wheels, motors and other parts as individual components, so one can upgrade their robot as much as necessary.
The entire FIRST competition was this weekend, not just the LEGO part.
:(
I used to think Slashdot had a clue, but now everyone here just pisses me off.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
The CNN article implies that this competition was "invented" by Kaman...Botball is a much more challenging competition, has been around for a number of years, enjoys NASA sponsorship, and makes use of multi-controller robots (including the incredibly versatile, open-source Handy Board controller). Plus, Botball is open to high-school students as well as middle school.
The kids that beat MIT, as profiled in WIRED, are at the FIRST competition in Atlanta too.
These First Lego leaguge compititions arn't new, they've been going on for the past 3 years. I'm currently 16 but I was just young enough to participate in the compition for the first two years.
The league website is http://www.firstlegoleague.org/
For those of you that are interested in how the compition works. Each team competes for a maximum amount of points achieved by completeing various missions in an enclosed arena withen a set amount of time. Teams build and program Lego Mindstorms robots to get as many points as possible. Though the main goal is to achieve the highest score, the true winner is picked by the innovation of the robot design. The compitition itself is very fun and challenging, and it teaches the kids a lot about design and troubleshooting.
Its definately a great experiance for everyone, even if you don't win (like my team).
Judging from the posts, I'd say most /.-ers don't really have a clue of what it takes to build a robot from LEGO or any other materials. What the teams of FIRST and every other autonomous robotics competition accomplish is a great deal more than you would expect.
First there is the physical construction, some projects being as complex in nature as many real world projects.
Second there is the programming, and while there may be discussion about whether LEGO uses 'real' programming techniques, it IS programming, and it is real world interaction programming. One mistake and the robot runs into walls or fails in any of a thousand other ways. Any team that completes the tasks is a winner in my book, whether they win a prize or not. Its definitely NOT as easy as it might seem.
Third, there is an entire swath of systems programming that has to be dealt with. Redesigning hardware to match newly found software restrictions and so forth.
Just two cents worth
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I was in the state Lego Robotics Competition in NJ. Didn't win all challenges but at least beat the Vocational technical school. ;-P I'm 15 so I was on the High School team.
Because I have low karma, I need pills.
Twelve year old Taylor offers 'NASA works with a lot of robots and when you build a robot you need to know what goes in it,' says Taylor. Wow, now I feel the need for a Redundancy Department of Redundancy
My UID is prime... is yours?
Another site comes to mind
The Brick Testament
Reading TFA, you'd think ONLY the Lego competition was going on, but that's about 1/3 of it.
Quoting from TFCNNA:
"Joining some 25,000 high school students who compete separately, hundreds of budding mad scientists from ages 9 to 14 each hope their mechanical monsters will win an award."
The Lego League is obviously for ages 9 to 14, and the other two competitions (described below) are for the older high school students 'who compete separately.' Thus, the CNN article is all about the hundreds of younger kids, and only a bare mention of the thousands of older kids who make up to two-thirds of the competition (not to take anything away from the LEGO league).
Putting on my imaginary Reporter cap, the first thing I'll do is shamelessly steal text from the usfirst.org website:
"FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational non-profit organization, that aspires to transform culture, making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today.
FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter"
There are/were THREE things going on at this event:
The original FIRST Robotics http://www.usfirst.org/
These are given standard controllers and motors (much like R/C radios with high-power servos), and the kids have to find and make the frame, wheels, arms and other mechanical parts 'from scratch'.
FIRST LEGO League http://www.usfirst.org/jrobtcs/flego.htm
This is based on the Lego Mindstorms robotics kit(s)
Those two competitions have been going on for several years.
And this year for the first time:
FIRST Vex Robotics http://www.usfirst.org/Vex/
Vex Robotics is a kit sold at Radio Shack for $299 It's very much a complete kit with controllers, motors, wheels, frame pieces, nuts and bolts. Of course anyone can buy it but one of the requirements for the Vex teams is that they ONLY use parts from the Vex kit. IIRC, there were four Vex teams, and each team got two Vex kits to make their robot with.
Of course, the greatest shame is that I didn't go and have no excuses for not going. But at least I attend the local Robot Club meetings (and a shame there's no mention of this event on the website, especially since it's the FIRST HIT when googling for robot club):
(shameless plug)
http://botlanta.org/
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That sounds like a good thing.
I think he meant this is sad for the Atlanta Hawks. OTOH, this event had free admittance, and I haven't priced Hawks tickets lately.
But I DO agree, this is a Very Good Thing for anyone who believes science and technology are important positive driving forces in modern society, and that children and teens should be encouraged to learn about it.
Here's a relevant part of that quote again from http://usfirst.org/ of what FIRST wants to do:
"... making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today."
Is there anyone else here who agrees with that and thinks it's a Good Thing?
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I explain CNN's (lack of) news coverage here:8 &cid=12329601
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14712
The linked-to CNN FA is the only source most people use for this ir any shashdot discussion, and there are complaints when people don't even read that.
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Lots of good robopr0n, though only of Vex, no Lego or other FIRST robots:
http://www.vexlabs.com/vex-robot-photos.shtml
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