Argonne, Clean Car Show, Mr. Fieseler, Naperville Sun

A lot has been happening the last few weeks. Details will be posted on the teams own public website but highlights here.

Argonne National Lab-
We were very lucky to tour the Center for Transportation Research and see the hydrogen engine test lab, their test dyno, robotic driver and modular test platform, and a lot of other cool stuff. Our thanks to Thomas Wallner, Henning Lohse-Busch and Mike Kern for their time. In addition, we visited the advanced photon source.

Clean car show -
The event was not as heavily attended as planned but we were visited by a lot of interested families and kids. Another FLL team stopped by as well as Mayor Pradel. The kids (and I) liked all the cool cars - especially the Tesla. There were a lot of green vendors, including our friends from Litter Free Lunch.

Mr. Fieseler is a Naperville city Councilman and patent lawyer and is very interested and knowledgable in hydrogen's potential for a greener and cleaner future. He generously shared his time and talked to the group about hydrogen, bringing along fuel-cell car kit for them to build. A big thank you to him for the valuable insights that he shared.

Finally, we were in the Naperville Sun promoting FLL. The on-line link is below but the print version has a 2nd picture.
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/lifestyles/1838051,naperville-lego-building-esteem-na102209.article

Organization

The team is struggling with organization. Now that they are all in middle school, outside activities mean that not all members make it to all meetings. During the first meeting's post- mortem of last season, they realized that a means of collaborating outside our normal meeting times would help them prepare for tournaments. They're also growing in responsibility and want to take more of the meeting planning responsibilities.

So, the last couple weeks of meetings, besides working on project and robot ideas, have focused on how the team can collaborate outside the meetings and generating schedules. As a result, they can now post and track their progress on line and share ideas that all can see. They still have a way to go as they refine and settle into using the new process, but it looks promising.

Thank you Supernova

The team surprised the coaches on Tuesday with these tie-dye star plaques, designed built and signed by the team.

Thank you very much. We are proud to be your coaches.

Field Setup Kit Is Here!

I hope everyone has had a good summer vacation. I'm really looking forward to the new season.

Meeting Agenda, Monday, 8/10/2009, 10:30-12:00

• Spend first ½ hr discussing the new season and schedule ideas plus agenda for next meeting – so everyone will be prepared for post mortem and Brickworld and The Taste reports.
• How would they like to organize new season?
• Remember that Mrs. Naughton is mostly unavailable Thursdays, but Mrs. McCurdy will be able to help out as her schedule allows.
• Most project research work will be done outside the meetings.
• Thursdays may be partial meeting with ½ team every other week.
• Robot table work outside the meetings is encouraged and we will support as much as possible.
• Remaining time – build field setup

Meeting Agenda, Monday 8/17/2009, 10:30-12:00

• Nail down this season’s organization based on last meeting ideas.
• Reports back from Brickworld and The Taste.
• Discuss WF - small post mortem on what went well, what can be improved?
• What work we can do now to prepare for challenge announcement?

Taste of Chicago, Brickworld

Alex and his mom, and Trevor and his dad attended Brickworld, promoting FLL and checking out all the cool stuff. The robot had light trouble, just like world festival, but they were able to run a number of missions and give a good showing. They made a lot of good contacts, plus Alex and Trevor met the CEO of LEGO International and the main developer for the Mindstorms project, plus another LEGO executive from CT. It shows how sharing our talents with others ends up benefiting us as well. Thank you to Mrs. McCurdy and Mr. Allen for organizing the Supernova support of this event.
The picture shows Paul and Patrick at The Taste of Chicago, where Inscite had a FIRST booth. Michael and Andrew and their family plus Joey attended as well. Supernova was complimented on their presentation. They had a great time. Thanks to Mrs. Naughton and Mr. and Mrs. Toennies for organizing this event.

Back from World Festival

We're back from World Festival and had a fantastic experience. We learned so much from being there and the team is already busy thinking about and building next season's robot(s). Seeing the creative solutions, teamwork and spirit of the other teams was inspirational. Teams were also encouraged by Dean Kamen at the opening ceremonies and Woodie Flowers at the close.

Congratulations to Team STEELE for being honored with the 2nd Place Champion's Award! Very impressive. They were right behind us at the closing ceremonies and we were proud to have IL so prominently represented.

We also got a taste of the bigger robots. My oldest son Paul and I saw the WildStang FRC team compete Saturday and ran in to the Burnin' Rubber! FTC team in the stands. We found out later that WildStang was in the Winning Aliance and that Burnin' Rubber! won the PTC Design award. Way to go Illinios!

Thanks to FRC and FTC coaches Dan, Cathy and Eric for coming over to our pits and encouraging us at World Festival. Dan came out to welcome us as we entered the dome for our first practice round and came to watch 2 of our competition rounds.

We also had an exciting opportunity for a new 2009 FLL participant. Our project coach, Carol Naughton, will be starting a new team next year for her youngest son Matthew. His enthusiasm was noted by one of the volunteers and they invited him to meet Scott Evans on the floor of the dome, where he also signed Matthew's shirt.

Supernova was nominated for a programming award and for gracious professionalism. We did have some frustration with our robot performance, but we take it as a learning experience and, after all, that's what it's all about.

Thanks to everyone that supported and encouraged us this season.















Scott Evans signing Matthew Naughton's shirt.
(how cool is that!)

This is about 30 seconds in. Is the referee supposed to be holding the house?

They boys didn't run "find agreement" due to communication problems with the Taiwan team.

Mission3 Working