Robots and Marshmallows

The Determinators had their first official First Lego League meeting today after an unofficial gathering a few weeks ago, called to order for the sole purpose of determining a team name. Our meeting went very well. We talked a lot about teamwork, obviously a very important facet to the success of any FLL team.

Among the various team building activities we did today was the Marshmallow Tower. This is an activity I stole picked up from my friend Tisha who I helped assist in co-op in a Team Building class. For the activity, each team is given a bag of marshmallows and a package of spaghetti. In the space of 10 minutes, each team must work together to build a tower. The team with the tallest tower wins. Our two teams within a team did great and created towers within an inch of each other.

After a few of the sweeter building supplies were consumed, the kids were ready for a little robot time. We just opened our robot last night. As I loaded the software for the robot, I worried about learning all of this so I could adequately teach it to my children. I needn't have worried; I relinquished control, turned them loose with the robot, and they had it built and programmed in a couple of hours. (Needless to say, I'm not feeling any younger knowing my children are overtaking me in my computer knowledge.) Any questions that came up as my own kids became acquainted with the robot, they were able to ask a teammate who has a robotics class under his hat.

Overall, it was a great start to our first FLL season, and I'm looking forward to what's ahead.