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Subject: 
Re: FIRST Lego Leage competition at MSI Chicago
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Sun, 5 Dec 1999 02:53:09 GMT
Viewed: 
663 times
  
Be advised that there are two competitions sponsored by FIRST.  One has been
going on for a few years, called the "FIRST Robotics Competition"  The
other, new this year is FIRST LEGO League.

The latter, which is what the original post is about, is strictly limited to
stock MINDSTORMS and a restricted set of LEGO parts.  No other hardware or
software permitted.  It is also targetted at 9-14 year olds.  The bigger
competition is at least high school level.

See the LEGO Mindstorms site for more info on FLL.  See the FIRST site for
more info on either.  It is a great way for AFOLs to help kids learn and
play with robots at the same time.

--Jack Gregory


Nick Taylor <ntaylor@iname.com> wrote in message
news:3849B889.C73FBD9B@iname.com...
FIRST appears to be an excellent program from what I've seen.  I'd sure
like to see the kids in action instead of just photos of their robot
competitions.

Parallax (the makers of the BASIC Stamp) have recently started providing
support for FIRST.  See their page at:
   http://www.stampsinclass.com/

Have fun,
- Nick -

Tim Courtney wrote:

I just returned from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago where • they
held the Illinois state FIRST Lego League Mindstorms competition.  FIRST • is an
organization that uses Lego Mindstorms to help prommote kids pursuing • careers
in engineering (http://www.usfirst.org).  They attended MIT Mindfest as • well.

There were well over 50 teams participating, each created a robot that • placed
ping pong balls in a bin and knocked a post to make a couple Lego • astronauts
fall.  I shot about 2 rolls of film on the robot competition and the • teams of
kids with their robots, I'll post them when I get them developed.

I talked to the technology coordinator for FIRST at the event (pretty • much one
of the guys in charge there) about promoting LDraw for use with their
contests.  He sounded interested and will look into the program to see • if they
can inform the teams about it and how it will work with Autodesk and • TLG, who
sponsor them.  If it works out, thousands of kids who work with • Mindstorms
will be indroduced to LDraw as a way of documenting and sharing Lego • model
ideas and introduced to the online Lego community as well.

Aside from that, John VanZwieten met me there with his family and we had • fun
talking about Lego stuff and watching the competition.

I'm thinking about working with a FIRST team for the kids or joining a • high
school level team - overall I was impressed with the compeition and the
organization!  Next week there's one of these events for Ohio just south • of
the Kentucky border, I don't have details on that event though.  But
DEFINITELY worthwhile to attend.

-Tim Courtney
ldraw.org Project Coordinator

http://www.ldraw.org
http://www.zacktron.com

AIM:   timcourtne
ICQ:   23951114




Message is in Reply To:
  Re: FIRST Lego Leage competition at MSI Chicago
 
FIRST appears to be an excellent program from what I've seen. I'd sure like to see the kids in action instead of just photos of their robot competitions. Parallax (the makers of the BASIC Stamp) have recently started providing support for FIRST. See (...) (25 years ago, 5-Dec-99, to lugnet.robotics)

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