There is always 'dead time' at the end of the tournament while the
judges confer prior to the awards ceremony. Many tournaments have
entertainment such as crab soccer or music/dancing while the teams wait
for the Awards Presentations. That might be a good time to have teams do
a brief presentation to the spectators and other teams about their
research projects. The 'skits' have to be less than 5 minutes each.
Maybe the judges could request that the top 4 or 5 from each division
present their research or maybe they could request teams to volunteer to
present at the end of the day. It seems like there should be a way to
share a few teams' work with others.  

-----Original Message-----
From: First Lego League Discussion
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Blanpied
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 1:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VADCFLL-L] It's all about the robot

There have been some great responses to George's note about the 
apparent robo-centric emphasis. I agree that this is more illusion 
than fact, and applaud the great work done by the project and 
teamwork judges and by the tournament officials who have the hard job 
of selecting among many deserving teams to win awards and advance to 
State.

I do think this conversation illustrates a downside of having the 
project get such limited visibility at the tournament. The project 
presentation is done behind closed doors, with only coaches and a 
camera to witness. Unless a team brings a display of some sort to the 
tournament, and unless other teams find the time to look at said 
display, there's little opportunity to share results amidst all the 
excited rushing about. We've been to two regional tournaments and 
came away with scant insight into what any other teams had done for 
their projects, and no sense that anyone other than two judges 
learned what our team had done. Although early in the season the kids 
are  reluctant to spend time on the research instead of the robot, by 
the time they create their presentation they're jazzed about it, so 
it's a bit of a shame not to have that enthusiasm compete at least a 
bit with the roar of the robots.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll maintain that it's 
worthwhile to search for more ways to celebrate the projects, for 
example by adding a celebratory element to the closing ceremony above 
and beyond presenting awards. Even a one--minute synopsis of each 
winning project, delivered by the announcer or a team member, might 
be nice. It's been noted that everyone is tired at the end of the 
day, and understandably loath to add more time to the closing 
ceremony. But if there are tournaments that add more project-focused 
material to the closing, I'd be curious to learn what was done and 
how it went over.

Cheers,
Mike

______________________________________________________________
To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS, please visit
https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or
leave the list".

If you want to join the VADCFLL-ADMIN-L mailing list - to which FLL
administrative announcements will be distributed - visit
https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-admin-l.html and select "Join
or leave the list".

______________________________________________________________
To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list".

If you want to join the VADCFLL-ADMIN-L mailing list - to which FLL administrative announcements will be distributed - visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-admin-l.html and select "Join or leave the list".