We had our First Lego League robotics competition today.  It was a big day full of lots of emotion.  We had a young team this year with few repeats.  Only a few knew anything about the programming when we coaches had a hard time engaging and motivating the group as a whole.  Lex carried a lot of the weight on his shoulders as the only returning member with tech skills.  We got off to a rough start with early morning wake ups.  No one was happy to wake up earlier on a Sunday than we do on school days! 

A few rounds of Uno to get the day started!

The opening ceremony

The 2016 FLL team!

Thanks to the Hartford Area Career and Technology Center for their sponsorship!!

We started with the robot design presentation, then the project presentation, then the Core Values meeting with the judges.  Unfortunately we didn’t have a real cohesive team this year, but they surprised us all with their presentations.  

Presenting their robot to the judges.

First run on the board!

Here’s where the day got interesting.  One of the missions they tried, and usually succeeded at in practices, didn’t work as expected.  The team talked to the refs afterward and discovered that the refs hadn’t set up the table correctly! The ref decided to give them the full number of points they could have potentially scored on that mission, although we as a team knew we never would have scored that high! That started us off with 115 points, day more than we ever expected! The kids were thrilled and started asking what the grand prize trophy looked like.  

A bit later we had a chance to run a practice mission on the competion table and we got our first feel for what the robot really could do.   Sadly, not much.  That run wasn’t for points, but it left the team a little shaken.

Time for some last minute tweaks and practice runs!

And sometimes you just need to be silly. 😁

After scoring only 10 points on the second mission (an hour later), a judge came over and told us that they needed to change the excess points awarded because they deemed it (fairly, IMHO) excessive.  They told us they were going to scrap our first run and we would get another turn.  The kids we’re expecting to be going into their final (3rd) round with a score of 125 points, but suddenly they were heading to their second round and only had 10 points.  Spirits were low. 😕

In the next round they were rushing too fast, pieces dropped and broke, missions didn’t work, and they were really discouraged.  Then we had about 10 minutes to regroup before the now final run.  

They slowed down, made better moves, but still the missions didn’t work.  Ones that had worked reliably on our practice mat didn’t work at the competition.  The kids felt disappointed and somewhat robbed.  

It was sad as a parent to watch. There were many tears from the kids (mine and others), and their disappointment was heavy.  However, as a coach I had pulled my hair out trying to get them to focus and pay attention and even TRY to learn the robotics, so i, and the other coaches, were not at all surprised at the results and I watched as one by one the kids came to the realization that maybe they should have put in a little more effort up front.  Sad, but true. 

We decided to have a wrap-up meeting/celebration and try to end the season on a somewhat higher note.  Hopefully most will be willing to come back and give it another, more focused!, try next year.  

I was sad to see Lex truly unhappy in this area that he loves so much.  I remember when he started two years ago as the youngest on an experienced team and I felt that he had finally found his tribe.  This year’s team was not his tribe.  I hope we can make it better for him, and all of them, (and us coaches!) next year.