New Podcast: First Week Back at School
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I just uploaded a new episode of Elementary Tech Teacher’s Journal.
Episode Number 39 for the week of August 29, 2011
First Week Back at School
Show Notes
In today’s episode I talk about the things I do with my K-5 students during the first week back at school. Plus I get our FLL (First LEGO League) teams organized and running.
http://www.bradflickinger.com/Brad_Flickinger/Podcast/Podcast.html
This week’s episode is sponsored by Atomic Learning.
New Podcast: Getting Ready for another FLL competition
#edtech #edchat #elemchat #foodfactor
I just uploaded a new episode of Elementary Tech Teacher’s Journal.
Episode Number 36 for the week of August 8, 2011
Getting Ready for Another FLL Competition
Show Notes:
This week I talk about what I do to get ready for the upcoming FLL (First LEGO League) competition. Our school usually has 3 or 4 teams that compete in our local qualifier.
http://www.bradflickinger.com/Brad_Flickinger/Podcast/Podcast.html
This week’s episode is sponsored by Atomic Learning.
FLL Tips & Tricks Number 9: Update Your Software and Firmware
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Before your first meeting with your First LEGO League (FLL) team your will want to make sure your programing software and the forward on your NXT brick. Every update that comes from LEGO is an improvement and you don’t want to miss out on something that could make your robot better.
SOFTWARE DRIVER: the official title of this software is “LEGO MINDSTORMS Education NXT Software,” or NXT-G and the most recent version as of writing this post is version 2.1. This is the software comes with your LEGO NXT kit or you can buy is for $79 from LEGO. To update driver go to this website: http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/support/files/default.aspx#Driver
FIRMWARE: the firmware is what is on the NXT brick. To update the firm ware go to this website and download the firmware file: http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/support/files/default.aspx#Firmware Place the firmware file in the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT/engine/firmware folder. Now open the NXT-G environment, and open an NXT program file (any program, even a new blank one). Plug in your NXT brick via the USB cable. Under the “Tools” menu in the software, you can now select “Update NXT firmware”.
- Brad Flickinger, Bethke Elementary School
FLL Tips & Tricks Number 8: Using Parents Volunteers
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You cannot have a great First LEGO League (FLL) team without some great parent volunteers. There is just way too much work for one coach to do. So the first thing you need to do when you put together your team is to find out what each family is going to bring to the table, every family needs to contribute something. So I make a sign up sheet that has the following categories:
Co-Coach: I need another adult at every meeting, someone to help supervise and make sure that things get done. So if I need to work with two students on getting the robot to pick up an item, the other parent can have the rest of the team and work on the research project. So I have a list of all the weeks and parents can sign up to co-coach.
Snacks: Since most of team practice after school, I make a parent in charge of snacks. They bring something for the kids to munch on before we start our meeting. This is a great one for parents who do not have the time to devote to being a co-coach, they can just buy or make some great snacks and just drop them off at the school.
Hats: Our local qualifying competition already provides us with t-shirts, we usually put a parent in charge of our hats — something that really makes us stand out. This parent works with our team to design and make cool hats for us to wear at the competition.
Support: This parent works with our team to develop posters, cheers and chants to motivate our team during competition.
So to get the help I need I have these positions posted at the first meeting, once they are filled things just take care of themselves — don’t ever try to do it by yourself. USE YOUR PARENTS!
FLL Tips & Tricks Number 7: Team Naming 101
When it comes to naming your First LEGO League (FLL) team, some teams get it done right away and I’ve seen others fight over it for weeks.
I make naming our team part of the first meeting, I explain that we will take ideas for names and then we will have round one of voting. Then the top two names will be discussed and possibly improved upon. I explain to the team that whatever name gets the most votes will be our team name and if you don’t get the name you wanted you will still support the new team’s name because that is one of the first lessons to playing on a team.
A couple things to think about when picking an FLL team’s name:
- The name should be memorable (and fun). Your name is going to be announced over the PA system at the FLL competitions and you want everyone to know who you are. I still remember from four years ago the team named the Crazy Chickens. Because when the announcer would say; “The next round at table four will be the Crazy Chickens versus the (some forgettable team name).” Crazy Chickens stood out from the more common boring team names.
- Try to include the theme in your name if you can. If this year’s theme is about the exploration of the moon then try to tie that into your team’s name, like The Lunar Chickens (see above).
- Most people try to include something to do about LEGO in their name and usually their school’s mascot. Just remember to be original — FLL doesn’t need another team named The Mega Building Eagles.
Just remember to never let naming the team take much more than ten minutes. I once had a team argue over a name for six weeks, some students even threatened to quit if they didn’t get the name they wanted. In the end we had spent so much time that our final team name never got to the competition registration so we were just called our team number anyways. We wasted a lot of valuable time that year on something so petty as a team name. So don’t finish your first meeting without a team name.
- Brad Flickinger, Bethke Elementary School
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