pic: Why I work the FLL table
 

Re: pic: Why I work the FLL table
 

That is really cute, reminds me of when I was a little older than that and Mom would pull me out of school early to watch the demonstrations up in the lobby and to watch the big kids with the robots down below in the stadium. Never would have guessed at the time that I would mentor my own FLL team and be part of one of the "Big Robot" teams. Go Blue Cheese!

(I can't put my finger on which feild that was in the picture... the parts in the foreground of the kid don't ring a bell, unless it was the Nanotechnology feild from 2007?

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I see a future First'er in his eyes. Keep up the good work. Volunterring is a great way to let the little guys get a taste of How to make things Work.

Re: pic: Why I work the FLL table
 

That is actually the 2008 game, Climate Connections. The blurry thing is the field piece that when you bump it, it sends a wheel rolling to do... something.

I wasn't even an official volunteer, I SHOULD have been at the alliance pickings- I'm our head driver and team captain!

Re: pic: Why I work the FLL table
 

Yup. I had wanted to be an FLL technical judge/ref since the fifth grade when I got my first taste of FLL and finally got the opportunity to do so this FLL season. It's sorta neat to change hats and be the guy you were once trying to impress. Overall a fantastically rewarding experience.

Re: pic: Why I work the FLL table
 

Okay... I was thrown off by the grey, I remember it red. Also the photo does not show the crossbow styled launchers at the base. That was for sending a wheel into what was supposed to be a levy, keeping the "Water" out.:rolleyes:

For the second comment... we all missed something. I wasn't in the pits after the pickings, thinking it was lunch, he he. :D

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The gray is part of the robot, it has a manipulator a bit like a steam shovel in that is drops out from underneath. Besides, my photography teacher liked it.

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:P No no no... My fault for not being more specfic. I can see the NXT from the wires and the rounded brick shape, and the grey bars in front of that from the Attatchment. I was trying to describe the blurry LEGO figure in the foreground, that appears to be about a foot and a half away from the NXT...


(:] By the way, did you start with FLL when we had the good old RCX or with the newer Labview based NXT?)

Re: pic: Why I work the FLL table
 

I miss the RCX....

I started in Lego in 2001, and now I ref at the tournaments. Its cool seeing it from a different perspective.

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Oh how I miss the RCX... Back in my day (2001-2005), it was a HUGE deal to be able to drive straight. We spent several seasons perfecting our driving code and robot base design. Nowadays, they just set these newfangled NXT robots on the table and they go straight. I'm a little jealous. :]

[EDIT]
Wasn't RoboLab also based on Labview?
[/EDIT]

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Remember the days when you could only use 1 rotation sensor?

And yes Robolab was based on Labview. In fact it resembled Labview far more than the new NXT-G software does, because it didn't have the whole fancy LEGO GUI.

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Got it. Good depth perception, too. Yeah, I remember the big ol' yellow thing in '01... too bad I never got to touch it all through 5th grade. Then in 6th grade I started making a soccer-bot with it and never finished, but it was cool designing something for a college level competition at the time.

My parents JUST told me the other day that they ALMOST got me my own mindstorms kit, until the store stopped carrying it. ALMOST!:(

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Yeah we did that too. We made our own "precise" programs, we would ramp up when going forward, then ramp down, and we made it so we went to the exact rotation we wanted to go.
The one thing I like about NXT is it has more memory. We ran into memory problems with the RCX.

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I loved the RCX, grew up on it and learned basic programming from Robolab, which I like better than that new Mindstorms for the NXT, you had to think through all the "steps" in Robolab where it does the work for you in mindstorms... so it either does twice as much as you want or none at all...

The NXT does have more memory, and is much more organized as it's own computer entity. And yes, not going straight was the RCX's one big downfall...:(