IO15: Celebrating a Successful Mission!

Greetings FIRST LEGO League Oregon,

In today's FIRST LEGO League Oregon Update we will cover these items:

1. Congratulations Champions!
2. What the Theme?
3. Coach End of Season Survey
4. February Secret Missions
5. Stories of the Season!
6. FIRST Tech Challenge Jumpstart!

Use this link to read this update as a blog post

  If you are new to this email or blog this is the place where you will find all of the OREGON specific FIRST LEGO League information. If you are in the FIRST Dashboard as a team coach of a registered team for INTO ORBIT you will be added to this list every week for the rest of the competition season. Every update this season begins with IO (Into Orbit) and a number, that number lets you know which update it is, if you miss an update you can find it on our blog.

1) Congratulations Champions!

January saw the conclusion of the Oregon competition season for FIRST LEGO League. With amazing volunteers, remarkable teams, and encouraging coaches, the events did not disappoint! I would like to thank everyone who came and joined in the celebration.

All of the event winners can be found here.

You can relive the fun with all the fun photos; Saturday, Sunday, or of our award-winning teams!

I hope you will join us in wishing our seven continuing teams the best of luck at their events!

• 23221 Kidobots will represent Oregon at the World Festival April 17-20
• 23767 SYZYGY and 23765 Unidentified Flying Cats will be at the Razorback Open Invitational May 16-19
• 20372 Guardians of the LEGO Galaxy and 26425 Mechanical Stars will be at the LEGOLAND Open Invitational May 17-19
• 11687 Pisces of LEGOs and 38016 Soaring Robotics will be at the Mountain State Open Invitational July 11-14

Good luck teams! We hope you bring back lots of things to share with the other Oregon teams.

2) What the Theme?

We are impatiently waiting out the cold void between FIRST LEGO League themes that we find ourselves facing due to an unpredictable theme vortex that has enveloped all of FIRST headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire. To ease the statewide, dare I say worldwide, robot-induced cabin fever I have created a contest just for FIRST LEGO League Oregon teams! Join in the guessing fun on our blog & our Facebook post! One team will win big and we'll all be ready to celebrate when the cone of silence is lifted!  Includes the FIRST Official teaser for the coming season.

3) Coach End of Season Survey

If you were a coach of a FIRST LEGO League team for the INTO ORBIT season, even if your team did not attend an event! Please complete this Survey Monkey survey for ORTOP. This survey asks a lot of questions about your teams, your team budget/fundraising, and about ORTOP services. It is really helpful to receive as much feedback as possible.

USE THIS LINK for the Oregon Coache's Survey!

If your team received ORTOP Team Financial Support for INTO ORBIT you are required to complete this survey!

This year Oregon participated in the FIRST LEGO League Software Pilot program. This allowed teams the choice to use the EV3 programming language or another language of their choice as long as their robot was still fully autonomous. Most teams still used the EV3 language, but FIRST is very curious about all coach thoughts on this pilot. Please complete their survey by the end of the month. It is also through Survey Monkey.

USE THIS LINK for the FIRST Programming Survey

4) February Secret Missions

FIRST is running a secret mission contest again this year! To participate your team just needs to video the solution to any of the three secret missions this month! All solutions will have a chance to be selected. If selected your team will receive Great Wall of China LEGO sets! <- could this be an additional game hint? Last year they gave away Saturn V models!

If your team uploads a video please share it with Oregon too! We'd love to see your successful missions. You can share on our Facebook or blog for all to see!

5) Stories of the Season!

Every year, I LOVE to hear your team's stories of the season! It's time again to share your team's experience; those learning moments, the big ah-ha, the struggle that felt impossible, and those frustrations that only coaches understand. Please consider taking the time to write it up and send it to me, the good, the bad, and the ugly! I'd love to share your good (publicly or anonymously) with other coaches and in our summer advise. The more of you that share the better I can prepare incoming coaches and our returning coaches alike!

Not a coach, but a volunteer or FIRST LEGO League supporter with a story to share? Your stories are just as important and just as welcome! Don't let not being a coach stop you from sharing what made a difference for you in FIRST LEGO League.

Please send your stories with the subject "Stories of the Season" to Loridee-Wetzel@ortop.org

6) FIRST Tech Challenge Jumpstart!

Is your team ready to make the transition to FIRST Tech Challenge?  FIRST Tech Challenge is a competitive robotics program from FIRST for 7th-12th-grade students. This year's game is called Rover Ruckus. Teams build metal robots that are controlled by android cell phones to compete in a 12'x12' field. Just like FIRST LEGO League the theme and game change every year. Just like with FIRST LEGO League (contact me if you know of a new team that wants to jumpstart and needs help), your team can jumpstart their FIRST Tech Challenge season by registering NOW! Even though it is still the Rover Ruckus season (join us for the state championship at Liberty High School on Sunday, March 10!) your team can register now, and be prepaid for next season.  By registering early your team gets access to buy a kit of parts and get started learning how to build a more complex robot. They also get to practice transitioning their programming knowledge from EV3 to Blocks or Java!

For more information about Jumpstarting a FIRST Tech Challenge, see this FIRST website.

If your team would like to know more about FIRST Tech Challenge and the 200+ teams in Oregon, please see the ORTOP FIRST Tech Challenge page.

Even though the FIRST LEGO League Competition season in Oregon has come to a close we have a lot of exciting things to look forward to! FIRST LEGO League Jr will be having expos in April and May at various venues in the state. FIRST LEGO League teams are a great asset at these events to share what the next level looks like. This summer is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, and FIRST LEGO League Oregon has been invited to join in some of the festivities - so keep those robots working, more fun is on the way!

Best Wishes,

Loridee