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First Lego League in Virginia and DC

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First Lego League in Virginia and DC <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
Curt Tran <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 6 Dec 2011 13:26:53 -0500
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Curt Tran <[log in to unmask]>
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I just want to add some words on these subjects...  My daughter is attending
JMU.  A fan of FLL, every year, she and so many other JMU students have
volunteered to work at the FLL championship tournament.  The two weeks
following the tournament are final exams time for their fall semester.
Moving the competition date into their final exam weeks is just unthinkable,
and we will lose a lot of support from JMU students.  

 

My son used to compete in FLL and is now attending high school.  He and many
other high school students volunteered to judge and referee at many of our
regional tournaments.  Most of these students are in their high school's
robotics club competing in FIRST FRC where their competition season kicks in
during January/February.  Moving the competition into that time frame will
lose the support from our high schools because of schedule conflict with
their very own FIRST robotics tournaments.

 

On the subject of TJ testing, the TJHSST's director of admission has
publicly made it very clear that they will not make exception to their
testing -- unless the student was totally sick in bed that day.  So if the
parent's car broke down on testing day and the kid could not make it to the
testing center, you are out of luck!  Yet, TJ do allow those students that
travel to JMU for the championship tournament every year to be excuse early
on TJ testing day.  These students will take the TJ standardized test but
defer the essay writing test until a later day so they can attend their
tournament at JMU.  The question one should ask is where TJ places FLL
participations in their criteria for final selection of students for TJ -
especially when every year they make the only exception for FLL champion
tournament on testing day.  The answer may be very simple in that TJHSST is
the VA's science and technology high school and these kids have demonstrated
success in reaching the (VA State) FLL championship tournament (of science
and technology) at JMU.  How cool can it be if you are trying to get into TJ
and your name is on a very short and prestige list of name sent from FIRST
to the TJ admission office that year!  However, having your name on the list
does not guarantee making TJ semifinalist or final selection for TJ, but it
does not hurt to have your name on this short list that is being personally
handle by the TJ's director of admission herself.  She personally sends out
e-mail to each kid's parent notifying that their son/daughter is excused
from the writing portion of the test to go to JMU for their FLL championship
tournament.

 

A word for those coaches/parents that contemplate not to let their kids
competing in FLL next year because of a potential TJ testing conflict,
please stop and let your kids decides.  If they love robotics and have been
competing in FLL during 5th, 6th, and 7th grades, why stop them during their
8th grade.  Think about this -- as it might even have a negative impact on
their TJ application.  How will it look to the admission office if the kid
just gave up on an excellent science and technology program such as FLL --
will this kid be successful in 4 years of high school in a very intensive
science and technology program at TJ? 

 

Final words on tinkling with the FLL competition date and schedule -- like
those computer software programs, if it is not broken please don't touch it!
JMU has done an outstanding job of planning and coordinating this FLL
program for so many years.

 

 

Best wishes,

 

T. (Curt) Tran

Judges Advisor, GMU Regional '11

Judges Advisor, TJHSST Regional '09

Mentor Team #5390, Kilmer-I '09

Mentor Team #8941, Kilmer-II '09

Coach Team #324, Scitobor '08

Coach Team #3563, Rabid Llama Lords '07

 

From: First Lego League in Virginia and DC
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eric Palmer
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 4:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VADCFLL-L] TJ prep factor (faction?)

 

I no longer have coaching skin in this game but will be a judge next year
and moving forward at state.

Having a longer season would be great.  The short season is hard on the
coach, the team and everyone.  

I don't want to dampen this converstion but there are other considerations
that need to be accounted for. So in the mode of transparency and thinking
through all the issues:

Understand running this tournament is part of a course that Nick teaches and
I would guess moving that class to spring semester may be hard.  I know from
my work at U of Richmond that some classes are taught in the fall because of
specific course sequencing needs.

I'm also guessing that having the tournament late in the semester is
advantageous to the class syllabus.  Even if these are not considerations,
this would probably have to be planned for the 2013 season (so 2013-2014)
because of scheduling dependencies with regional venues. I help coordinate a
24 team tournament in the Richmond area and we have already booked the space
we need for next fall. Moving these dates can be challenging.

Eric Palmer
Team #7
The Rainbow Cows

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Sean Ward <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

And don't forget the SNOW!  :)

 

 

Sean Ward

Coach - The Occoquan Braves

 

Sean Ward
2nd Grade Professional Educator
Occoquan Elementary School

>>> "Lloyd O'Hara" <[log in to unmask]> 12/5/2011 4:13 PM >>>

Not that my two cents really matters but.... I like it just the way it is, a
nice compact space of time.  Conflicts will happen no matter when you have
the tournament.  It was a great weekend.  

 

Speaking of thanks conflicts, moving it into the winter has a huge impact on
those of us who, in addition to coaching a FLL team, also help mentor an FRC
team.  

 

Thanks for listening,

 

Lloyd O'Hara

Coach, The Crestwood Monarchs

----- Original Message ----- 

From: B Bergenstock <mailto:[log in to unmask]>  

To: [log in to unmask] 

Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 3:26 PM

Subject: Re: [VADCFLL-L] TJ prep factor (faction?)

 

Everything is a trade off.  By going to the competitions my son made a
choice to not attend a (somewhat awesome) soccer event his team attended,
obviously without him.  There is no way to avoid conflicts, but I hear what
you are saying, Making a trade for this particular group puts your group at
a loss.  However- it is a numbers game. The fact they had to create an
exception form might point to how many people were affected by this year's
tournament date.
    I say we move it to February!  
Brandy

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:42 PM, Arielle Masters <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

I saw the note about sending private e-mail but there's another side to
this:  not all of us are trying to get into TJ and/or we have other time
constraints that would be adversely impacted by a date change.   

 

Have you asked TJ to change its exam day instead or - easier for all of us
except for the people proctoring the TJ exams! - to offer a makeup exam day
for those with VADCFLL conflicts?  That would be way better for those of us
who plan around more than one activity this time of year. 

 

My girls' teams haven't made it to the state competition yet but they'd love
to (last year, our older daughter's team was an alternate).  But if you
change the competition to a week later and their teams did go on next year,
either my girls would have to miss their annual skating performances or miss
the LEGO competition :-<  They practice for months for their skating
show/program (one does the rink's annual group show; the other does solos
and takes private lessons to put her routine together).  As LEGO coaches and
parents, that would put us (and them) in a really awkward spot - go to their
skating shows (and who would bring the team to the competition?), go to the
LEGO competition (and pull them out of their performances, which wouldn't
show much commitment at the rink), or send them to their skating shows with
the grandparents while we take the other kids out of town (AWKWARD!).  I
realize there isn't as much overlap with ice skaters as with TJ preppers,
but I wanted to point this out as an example that the TJ folks aren't the
only ones out there with other obligations and plans who would be impacted.
At least an exam can be rescheduled; a skating show and a lot of other
events can't be. 

 

Thanks for keeping more than just the TJ preppers in mind.

 

 

 

On Dec 5, 2011, at 2:02 PM, Nagesh Chintada wrote:





Desh 

You bring up a great question about TJ exams. Your team's situation
regarding TJ Exam is unfortunately not unique. There is a high correlation
between teams that compete in FLL and team members that want to go to TJ,
both strong in S.T.E.M. 

 

My team members who will be in the 8th grade next year are already turned
off at the prospect of TJ exam coinciding with FLL Championships, and they
are not sure if they want to come back to FLL next year as a team due to the
extra pressure this scheduling conflict creates.This is a dilemma many teams
face and is not unique to one team, since I know some other kids who had
similar issues.

 

I would like to request VADCFLL to consider moving the competition a week
after the TJ Exams are done. I am sure this will help more DivII teams show
up and compete more fully.

 

 


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