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At 06:48 PM 12/04/1999 , TOMKMIT@aol.com wrote:
> Tim,
> I help out a middle school team in the First Lego League (our competition was
> today) as well as help out with a large (120 team) annual event with Lego in
> the elementary schools in Rhode Island. (We were on Nightline two years ago).
> I hae never used ldraw. Do you have a specific idea for its use by kids in
> the Lego competitions?
Tom,
Its great to hear from someone involved with one of the First teams! My
ideas for LDraw and the teams would simply be for the kids to learn how to
program their robot design into the computer to document its construction
etc. LDraw unfortunately cannot make working models of robots in a virtual
arena, but careful construction of files of subassemblies will allow the
robot to be easily posed in different positions for renderings, etc.
The software is a little more advanced, so it would be advantageous for the
higher end of the FLL age bracket. Depending on what the FIRST higher-ups
say about it, it could be at least mentioned in the material, if not
included or recommended to the contestants.
For kids to understand it, they would probably need a specialized tutorial
on its use geared towards the FIRST competition so they can easily
construct their robots. It won't become a critical part of the
competition, but a really cool side project for them to work on.
To check out its potential, I recommend the MLCad editor, featured on
ldraw.org at http://www.ldraw.org/mlcad.html. Its Windows-based, unlike
the original LDraw and LEdit, and features mouse control as well as the
original keyboard controls.
All in all offering LDraw materials to the kids would open them up to the
online Lego community. It would also develop their computer skills with
programming their model in LDraw. They would learn things like how to
navigate a 3D coordinate plane and computer rendering by using the
software. I know its not focusing on robotics like the competition does,
but I believe it would be a definite plus to the program.
BTW - I'd like to hear about the Nightline experience, perhaps a tape of it
as well?
-Tim
http://www.zacktron.com
http://www.ldraw.org
AIM: timcourtne
ICQ: 23951114
If you don't believe in Gosh, you'll go to Heck, where you'll face eternal
darnation.
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