Behind the scenes of C14 Lego Robotics: It's not just bricks and pizza.

The videos produced by C14 Lego Robotics might lead you to think that the First Lego League competition is all high-tech and whizzy and glamorous. Sure, there's a lot of building and programming, and quite a bit of pizza eating (surely the realm of the rich and famous), but there are other aspects to the competition that aren't so well advertised.

The team has to research a problem associated with 'Nature's Fury' (the FLL theme this year) and then present their findings, and a proposed solution to the problem, to the judges. It takes a lot of work to get that presentation right. And quite a lot of my sofa, dining room table, floor...(you get the picture). There was me thinking that a presentation was about the spoken word. Apparently not.

Ds1. More research. More editing. More late nights.

Outside of the robot construction and programming, there have been additional requirements for lego building. For example, ds1 created this attachment in order to carry a video camera on top of the robot . This means they can get better footage of the robot attempting challenges.

Behinds the scenes mothers are working hard, too. This mother has been producing home bakes to send with her two team members as they head off for yet another mammoth roboteering session. Yes, I know the pasties look like a road traffic accident, but I'm told - by the boy who doesn't eat normal things - that they are very good.

On Monday they worked from 9.30am to 5.30pm. Today is the second day of their 2-day intense Weds-Thurs session. Last night they slept over at another team member's house and I don't suppose they'll finish early today.

There has been an awful lot of packing, unpacking, packing: a constant pile of ingoing and outgoing bags in my hallway. And tomorrow we pack, yet again. This time for Loughborough and the national competition.


If you haven't 'liked' c14 robotics team on their Facebook  page, please do so. They would love to reach 200 likes before they set off for the competition - only 25 to go! (I know, I'm nagging...)

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 :)