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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]>
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Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:56:19 -0400
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Barry Wilbanks <[log in to unmask]>
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Second Phil's comments.  I've Been involved in FLL for many years now and teams will never cease to amaze you.
 
There was a situation I witnessed several years ago while a referee that might provide insight.  Young rookie team from rural area goes to tournament with best they could do.  Robot only had only 2 or 3 scoring options which amounted to 30 seconds of field time.  It only took that long because their robot moved very slowly.  When they were done with their missions they could only watch as other teams frantically tried to cram all their missions in.

This occurred in the practice round as well as the first two competition rounds.
In the last round they were sharing the table with one of the top robot performance teams.  Round starts, 30 seconds is up and their missions are done.  Shared mission was straightforward and both teams needed to accomplish for points but this team hadn't considered it doable.

Until the middle of the last performance round!!!  

At which point they took the robot off the table and tried to figure out a way without any coaches help, clock ticking and crowds screaming around them.

With the clock grinding on they plop the robot in base, get it aligned and hit start.  As it slowly crept across the table to their cheers, the other team and their supporters realize what is happening and start cheering also.  They need those shared points and only the rookie team and robot can help them now.

As time ran out, the robot hit its mark and the shared mission was activated.  Both teams go crazy.

I took several lessons away from that day but the most important was to succeed you have to try.

I have every faith in your team that if they try they will succeed as hundreds of rookie teams have before you.

Regards,






 

Regards

On Oct 14, 2012, at 6:17 PM, Jeff Lavezzo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Folks,
> I'm looking for some advice about my team.  
> 
> Through a variety of circumstances, our team finds itself very behind schedule.  We have yet to assemble a robot and only have one person on the team with experience programming the bot, (though the two coaches are both professional programers).
> 
> I'm in the middle of finally signing up for tournaments and recognizing that the best case scenario is that we get one more month, worst only a few weeks. I can't seem to get the kids together for more than about 90 min a week. Everyone has something at some other time. Ideally, we'd add a couple 3 hour weekend meetings to get us back on some semblance of a track, but I think I could only get about 3 team members for that.
> 
> Here's the question: Should we even sign up for the tournament?
> 
> I have my own ideas about our options, but I'd like to hear advice from those with more experience than me (I have no experience with FLL, haven't even been to a tournament). Especially advice from someone who's been in this position before: inexperienced coach, inexperienced team, hardly any time left.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Jeff
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