My rookie team faced pretty serious navigation challenges two years ago, so they did the missions that were close to base. We found that if we drove to the other end of the table, the robot would get lost. My advice would be to start close to base and work your way out. That lets the kids start working on attachments, etc without spending lots of time being frustrated by navigation. Once they can get the easy missions close to base, start expanding out. Navigating the board is a challenge, and this year is no exception. I would look at ev3lessons.com for their tutorials on driving straight, turning, and aligning on lines. What I found was that a bunch of 4th graders didn't have the attention span to really understand some of the finer topics needed for precise navigation. I think they finally 'got' it when they saw the other robots at the tournament. Until then it was all a bit abstract. First year is for learning... just make it fun and try to get them to come back next year! my $0.02 -Frank On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 10:37 AM, Phil Smith III <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > On your first question: > > Have them start with ones they know (think?) they can do, then add as they > go along. For a rookie team, trying to do all may be daunting, but may be > possible. But I can promise you that for a long time it'll be "Nothing ever > works..." -- hence the "start with the easy ones". > > Some flow may also evolve naturally -- "Hey, we weren't doing the XYZ > mission, but we can grab the flying squirrel on the way back from > delivering the atomic wombat" or whatever. Let 'em figure it out! > -- > Phil Smith III > > Coach, The Capital Girls (retired) > Team 1900 (2002) > Team 2497 (2003) > Team 2355 (2004) > Team 1945 (2005) > > -----Original Message----- > From: First Lego League in Virginia and DC [mailto:[log in to unmask] > jmu.edu] On Behalf Of Cathy Abi-Khattar > Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2016 10:15 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: [VADCFLL-L] how many missions to go for? > > Hello > We are a rookie team trying to figure out a good number of the missions to > tackle. About how many missions do most teams go for? All of them? Half? We > have a tight timeline so I want to challenge the kids as much as possible > without stressing them out. This is their first year doing a team. > > Also, where do we register and pay for our team to join the VA DC FLL? We > are registered and paid for nationally but on the VA DC FLL site I can only > find links to register nationally. Where do you pay the $125 to register > regionally? > > Thank you! > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your settings, please visit > https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or > leave the list". > > -- VADCFLL administrative announcements are sent via > VADCFLL-ANNOUNCEMENTS-L. Visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll- > ANNOUNCEMENTS-l.html to subscribe. > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your settings, please visit > https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or > leave the list". > > -- VADCFLL administrative announcements are sent via > VADCFLL-ANNOUNCEMENTS-L. Visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll- > ANNOUNCEMENTS-l.html to subscribe. > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your settings, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list". -- VADCFLL administrative announcements are sent via VADCFLL-ANNOUNCEMENTS-L. Visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-ANNOUNCEMENTS-l.html to subscribe.