Time to play catch up! The RoboRangers haven’t been keeping up with their blog all season but that is all about to change. Coach Susan is tackling that task week. Look for highlights of our season being posted this week. For us, it is a trip down memory lane of a really fun season!
Category Archives: Houston
The RoboRangers and Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon
For our project, we needed to find an expert that was familiar with the threat of hurricanes on Texas and their impact on our communities. Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon responded to our email and offered our team help with our project. Dr. Nielsen-Gammon is a Professor of Meteorology at Texas A&M and the current Texas State Climatologist. We were lucky to have Dr. Nielsen-Gammon come to one of our team meetings to talk with us. He said that the biggest unsolved problems with hurricanes are :
- The rapid formation of storms
- The strength of hurricane winds
- storm surge on barrier islands, like Galveston.
- people not evacuating. Over 140,000 Galveston residents did not follow mandatory evacuation orders before Hurricane IKE made landfall, despite dire warnings of storm surge and certain death from forecasters.
He also talked a lot about traffic and its impact on hurricane evacuations. 
New Challenge – Nature’s Fury
This year, the game theme is “Nature’s Fury”. Teams are tasked with identifying a community that can be impacted by a natural disaster, identifying a problem that the community faces when the natural disaster strikes, and then coming up with an innovative solution to that problem. The thematic playing field for the robot game is full of lego missions that simulate natural disasters that they autonomous robot needs to navigate through. It’s a pretty neat robot game this year.
Getting closer!
Damian and I had our second coaches call with the director of the FLL North American Championship Tournament last night. We’re getting excited, as I know our team is, about all the amazing opportunities that await them at the tournament. The RoboRangers received their schedule and pit assignment as well. We are sharing our pit with teams D’Limited (17), Veritas (20), and Tomorrow (21)from Korea, the Pantheres (3900) from Alberta, Canada, the Hurricanes (2492) from British Colombia, the Raiderobots Blue (4640) from Alabama, and the The Golden Oldies (373) from South Carolina!!! How cool is that! The team is going to have an amazing chance to meet kids from literally all over the world. I’m pretty sure our pit teams are all staying at the new LEGOLAND Hotel too so the team will have even more time to share experiences with their new Korean, Canadian, and American friends. We will be running our robot matches with teams Tomorrow, Hurricanes, and the Golden Oldies.
Countdown to the Championship
The RoboRangers have been busy getting ready for the south Texas Championship. They’ve made some additions to their research project and skit, as well as preparing a core values poster and executive summary. The robot handlers have been busy practicing at getting faster achieving their missions. The team has also had fun doing more teamwork challenges. Damian challenged the team to take paint sticks and tape to spell out the word robot.
The team added on to that and spelled “ROBORANGERS”. Awesome.
And to get out all the extra energy on a Friday night, the kids did pushups, even honorary little roboranger Conley. Note Morgan finding her center…doing the “child’s” yoga pose. Namaste Morgan.
Being goofy.
After the teamwork challenge, Fiona took over the camera and captured a few gems.
FLL Qualifier at Revere Middle School
The RoboRangers had a fantastic day at their qualifier. The team was easily spotted with their crazy rainbow mohawk hair!
Marcus and Aidan ran the first robot run of the day and scored the team’s highest score.
Bobby and Evan were the handlers for the second match and worked awesome together! Alex and Ray had a fantastic third run with the buzzer beating race to the ramp! Everyone cheered when it balanced just as the timer rang. Phew!
The team gave their project presentation and completed their team work challenge between matches. Their skit was hilarious! So much fun was had by all!
After their final match, the team sat down with a technical judge and went over all the aspects to their robot, the “Flying Monkey.”
At the end of the day, the RoboRangers received an advancement ticket to the Lone Star South Texas regional. Their day was highlighted by receiving the 1st place award in Strategy & Innovation for robot performance and the 2nd place Champion’s Award!!!! Way to go RoboRangers!!!
When we arrived back home, Duncan and Conley, along with their babysitter Ashley, made this awesome banner for Aidan, Fiona, and the rest of the RoboRangers!
Our new friends at Carriage Inn Assisted Living Home
The RoboRangers met 24 new friends at Carriage Inn. They told them about their team and all about this year’s FLL theme, Senior Solutions. As part of the team’s research, they surveyed residents at the Carriage Inn about their mobility problems, specifically the dangerous issue a lot of seniors face, falling. After they interviewed the seniors, they shared with them their new medical device idea. Most of the residents were enthusiastic about it’s possibilities but they raised some very good questions to the team about cost, longevity, and timeframe for availability. All great questions that they team will research further. It was a fun experience for everyone!
DaVinci Bridge
The team had a fun teamwork challenge this week. Damian gave them each a box of paint sticks and told them to make a bridge that could stand using only the paint sticks.
They completed the challenge and built a bridge that could stand on its own. Then Damian built “DaVinci’s Bridge”. He went over the history and neat mechanics of how the bridge was designed and constructed. Cool!
The RoboRangers and FRC Team 624 CRyptonites
The RoboRangers had the amazing opportunity to attend one of CRyptonites build meetings. Armed with curiosity and safety glasses, the RoboRangers learned all about the process from build to final product and Elizabeth showed them all the heavy machinery used to create their robot. They were just beginning to build their final robot but the RoboRangers got to see the prototype in action. The kids loved having basketballs shot at them! Thanks again to the CRyptonites for inviting the RoboRangers to hang out with you. Best of luck at the Bayou Regional. We hope to see Panzer in action at the Lone Star Regional!!!
Final Meeting
Tomorrow is the big day…the RoboRangers are headed to the 2011 South Texas Championship Tournament. The team practiced a few more robot runs and their skit. The evening was topped off with a cookie cake. Good Luck RoboRangers!
Good Luck RoboRangers!
The RoboRangers 
You must be logged in to post a comment.