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



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