C14 LEGO Robotics to go to the 2014 FLL Open European Championships in Pamplona, Spain!

Amazing news! C14 Robotics, the team of home educated Lego robotics enthusiasts that got through to the Nationals in Loughborough, have just found out they are invited  to the 2014 FLL Open European Championships in Pamplona, Spain! Very few teams have been invited from the UK so this is a real honour and a reflection of all the hard work they've put in.

The Championships is in May so C14 will need to raise a considerable amount of money in a short amount of time to enable them to go. Over the next few weeks they'll be looking for sponsors, donations and a bucket load of support.  

To find out more see their website  or if you wish to make a donation, however small, please check out their fundraising link (on the right hand side of my blog -->  ;)  ) [Note, by popular request they will be adding a paypal option soon!]

C14 Robotics introducing themselves to possible sponsors at The Big Bang Fair, Birmingham NEC, 2014

Taking time out to regroup and swap ideas, C14 at The Big Bang Fair, 2014

C14 Lego Mindstorm Robotics Team (First Lego League)

The team are still working overtime with their Lego robot, preparing for the Nationals on 1^st February. My boys spent almost 6 hours on Monday - in between biology class (ds1) and Lamda drama session (ds2) - working on the robot and the research presentation. Monday was also the team's ‘Open Day’, the second opportunity they've had to share their work with the public. Team members showed other families how the robot worked, how they programme it, and demonstrated the robot in action completing some of the challenges.

I know I'm a mum and it's my job to be proud of my boys, but I am *really* impressed with how far all the team members have come and how much they've grown in confidence. When they started, some had never programmed a Lego robot before, most had never researched and written a presentation, and few had read out anything in front of an audience before. Not to mention the experience of working really closely as a team, under pressure. It's been an amazing journey for all of them.

At the open day on Monday they spent a little while sharing their research project with the audience. [Here's the First Lego League website with details for this year's project challenge]. C14's problem was how to help people trapped in fires following an earthquake.  (They discovered when they started researching natural disasters for their project that more damage and injuries/fatalities are caused by fires following earthquakes, than the earthquake itself). Their proposal is for an autonomous rechargeable drone that maps the location and extent of fires and relays that information back to emergency services. It is also designed to be able to carry cargo (e.g. supplies for emergency teams). They've been working on acronyms for the design. I don't have high enough clearance to be given that top secret information yet! 

All this research on drones has inspired them to set their sights even higher. There have been rumours (mothers eavesdropping on teen conversations) that some team members are planning to design and work together on a flying model quad copter, once the Lego competition is finished. I don't even know what a quad copter is, but I'm seriously hoping its insides aren't going to be on *my* dining room table! 

There are also plans in the pipework for some of the team to mentor a younger group of budding Lego robotics enthusiasts later this year. There’s been a huge amount of interest from other families, stirred up by the C14 demonstrations and the publicity from their website, so I can't see they'll have a shortage of willing participants.

The team are meeting up again tomorrow (mine are working on the project from home) and again at the weekend and on Monday.  It’s going to be a long week. However well they do at the Nationals, whatever place they come among the 29 teams, they couldn’t possibly have worked any harder than they have.  

The team has been adding more to the website to get it looking its best: http://mindstormc14.weebly.com/

They also have a youtube channel, where they've posted videos of their robot in action (and a few fun videos of times where things didn't go to plan). [Insert proud mum moment...Ds2 made the computer animations at the beginning of each video. He loves his tech!]

And...if you happen to be on Facebook, I'm sure the team would love a few more 'likes' or just a comment to wish them luck for the Nationals. Search for "C14 robotics team".

Shameless plug/Proud Mum moment over :)

LEGO Robotics: the end is in sight...perhaps

Since the summer my two boys, as part of their team, C14, have been working towards a Lego Robotics competition run by First Lego League. Before Christmas they successfully beat all the teams in their regional competition and are now headed towards the nationals on the 1st February.

It has been a long haul.

Not just for them, but for their mother, whose diesel expenditure has gone through the roof, ferrying them backwards and forwards to team meetings and who has shuffled filed carefully a years worth of bills and bank statements while sitting in Sainsbury's cafe waiting for meetings to finish. Lots of filing, interspersed with fretting about whether Sainsbury's really do enforce their 2-hour parking limit. I even went to the library and lent a man a stapler while I sat and pondered the mental health of the - obviously borderline insane - woman on reception. My life has been thrills and spills.

Of course I can't help being their mother. Making helpful comments about their project write-up - "How about you put a full-stop somewhere in that paragraph?" - have resulted in occasional bad feeling and frequent teen sulking. Despite this, the whole exercise has, I think, been productive, (even if it hasn't vastly improved their ability to punctuate a sentence). I now have children who are willing (and able) to give a presentation in front of people. I have children who have shown how nice they can be to other children - if only to score a few more marks from the judges for 'coopertition'. And yes, that is a real word, apparently trademarked now (will me using it here be infringement of copyright, I wonder?) And I truly think they have learned lots of other things, I'm just not exactly sure what those things are. Educational, life-enhancing stuff, I'm sure.

I wont post team photos up here, but here's the link to their website where, if you want to see Lego robots doing Lego robot things, you can see for yourself what they've been up to.

http://mindstormc14.weebly.com/



[Sometimes real life intrudes when I am writing, so I feel compelled to mention that I'm typing this to the background noise of dd yelling 'left paw' at an animated dog on her Nintendo ds. Apparently the dog now does handstands. I am trying to sound excited. Except that we have a real dog that doesn't even come when it is called. I can't help thinking that the world is getting very surreal. ]

Friday: Home Things

People often ask what we do for home education; what our weeks are like. 'But how do you make them sit down and do work?' They ask.

Well. Most of the time they don't do 'work'. And they certainly don't spend much time at the table, unless it is to eat, to draw, make models or do some other child-directed activity.

So if you look at my past few blogs you will see a few of the things we did last week. Not every week is like this, but I guess it's fairly representative of how we do home education.



And so to Friday...

Friday is a 'home day'. Usually we tidy up, clean rooms, potter in the garden, bake, go to the library, and generally pursue our own interests. Of course you can label these activities however you like. For us everything we do has value, simply because we have chosen to do it.


Last week, this was our Friday.


Dd playing on her ds (literacy, IT, problem solving skills)

Ds1 writing a storyboard for his latest film (art, literacy, drama, media studies)

Metal detecting in the garden... (archaeology, physical education, history)

Lego modelling (design and technology)

Ds2 with his nose in a book (literacy, pure pleasure)

The tidying, undone (hey, what the hell):

A day of treasures:

(Check out my previous posts for Tuesday-Thursday)

Ok, having to do a very quick update again...whatever happened to my regular blogging habit??

So...we've been having a bit of a creative time...

..Painting
(so much nicer for mummies when it's warm enough to do it outside and the rain can clear it all up afterwards!):

Making chairs out of newspapers:



and yes, you could sit on it, just. Thought it best if I didn't try, that extra slice of fruit cake might just have done for it...

Making bionicle lego things:

Making pancakes (in pyjamas):

And cakes (when dressed):

Sowing seeds at the allotment.

Does that count as creative? We'll certainly have to be creative trying to find the carrots in amongst the weeds in a few months time.

And making a gazebo/pagoda/wooden thingy in response to my pathetic attempt to hitch up an old duvet cover over the garden table:

And now for the non-creative stuff:

Sword-fighting (should I categorise that under 'drama' or 'historical re-enactment'?)

Watching the professionals do it:

And saying hello to the nice man in charge of the horses: