pic: LEGO Legal?

[Laaba 80]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

There will be some robots that do not look or function as if they were built by middle school kids. It happens.

There are also robots that dont look like they were built by middle school students, even though they actually were built by students. In 2003 I was on the Martian Exchange Students, and in Atlanta that year we were the first team to get 3 perfect scores in competition. We had to put up with all of the garbage of people telling us we didnt build or program our robot, or that we did something against the rules. We did everything ourselves, and made sure any strategy we used was legal before we committed to it. We had a kid on our team who was 14 years old but looked older, he had to bring his birth certificate to prove to some people that he was 14. Never assume. Our team met every day for 3-4 hours because we wanted to be the best. It is not as fun when people try to tell you you did not do the work.
Joey

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Joey,
Agreed! It is just a fact that some parents bring a lot more to the table then mentorship. It is not hard to tell when a robot is built by students and when it is built (or partially built) by someone older. All one has to do is talk to the team and they will remove all doubt. A team built robot is built by students, who like yourself, have put a monumental effort into making it work perfectly and can tell you exactly how they arrived at their design or progam. Acting as an FLL judge or mentor, I have come to realize that there are some outstanding young people coming through FLL. It is to these students that I can point to with pride as the bright future of our country.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Laaba 80

There are also robots that dont look like they were built by middle school students, even though they actually were built by students. In 2003 I was on the Martian Exchange Students, and in Atlanta that year we were the first team to get 3 perfect scores in competition. We had to put up with all of the garbage of people telling us we didnt build or program our robot, or that we did something against the rules. We did everything ourselves, and made sure any strategy we used was legal before we committed to it. We had a kid on our team who was 14 years old but looked older, he had to bring his birth certificate to prove to some people that he was 14. Never assume. Our team met every day for 3-4 hours because we wanted to be the best. It is not as fun when people try to tell you you did not do the work.
Joey

Agreed!! I got the feeling that a programming judge one year didn't really think I had written the program I was showing him. Due to poor version control I realized the program I was showing him was not the up-to-date copy on the 'bot. I proceeded to mention this and explain the exact differences between the two programs. I think that convinced him that I wrote it

[mplanchard]

Pretty cool to design your own robot from different kits. However, watch the rules for any robot competition, know the type of parts, footprint and power requirements. In the meantime, you can find Tetrix (Pitsco), LEGO, FIRST CAD Library and VEX Protobot model files in SolidWorks and other 3d and 2d file formats on
www.3DContentCentral.com. Last week I saw a robot with a soda bottle attached. Dont spend your time modeling the kit part - when the real goal is to figure out your own assembly design. Marie