IO Pre-Season 3: Boxing Up the Materials

Greetings FIRST LEGO League Oregon,

In this update, you will find:

1. Team Financial Support is going to REVIEW!
2. Register for Coach, Mentor, or Parent Workshop
3. Free Table - Hillsboro
4. Paid Summer Camp Position
5. Space Classes for Teachers!
6. #Techniques - As Seen at World Festival - MyBlocks and Reusable Code
7. Expert Night - SAVE THE DATES

Use this link to read this update as a blog post

I am happy to announce we have enough registered teams for nearly 2 events! Great job teams!  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. 

I have returned from the FIRST Conference and am very excited about SPACE and INTO ORBIT!  This is going to be a fantastic season and a wonderful challenge for all of our kids! If you have not yet seen the preview of the table from the World Festival in April, please watch the video!  I also highly recommend some of the videos posted by coaches who were in Houston or Detroit and took nice video and photos of the field that was on display there.  BEWARE of videos from Europe where teams are "solving" missions, these may lead your team astray. The official table and rules will be released on August 1, ORTOP doesn't even have one yet!

1) Team Financial Support is going to REVIEW!

Team Financial Support Applications are pouring in! We have enough to review, and the reviewers will get them after the July 4th holiday. We project that the first round of award letters will go out around July 20-21!  Don't have your team's application in yet? There is still plenty of time!  Read this website and use the link on the page to apply. You MUST complete a full application for each team that needs funding. Money already spent on the team cannot be reimbursed, if you would like an ORTOP sponsor to pay for your National Registration, don't pay for it through FIRST!

If you have 2 adults to facilitate the team, 6-10 kids to complete the challenges, and a safe space to meet twice a week or for at least 3 hours a week, please do not let the money stop your team from forming! Sponsors are eager to help teams all across Oregon.

2) Register for Coach, Mentor, or Parent Workshop

The first workshop series has just completed at Intel Aloha Fabs and there was so much interest we have added a programming workshop on July 10th at this location! Other workshops have been added in Hood River, Salem, MEDFORD, and coming in the next week we will have dates and locations for both Malheur County (Vale or Ontario ~July 24-26) and LaGrande (~week of July 30, most likely at EOU). Attending a Coach, Mentor and Parent workshop is not only a great way to get a better understanding of the FIRST LEGO League program, but it's also a great opportunity to meet fellow parents and coaches in your local area who can be a resource throughout the season. 

Please sign up for these free workshops so we have enough materials for everyone!  

Want to know what to expect? All the materials are online here.

Workshops will run through September, but if you wait until the end registration will also be starting to close for new and returning teams!

3) Free Table - Hillsboro

Tournament quality wooden table available in Hillsboro if your team would like to take it home, please contact Ed at  <contact available in email version only>

4) Paid Summer Camp Position

Castilla Project in Hillsboro is looking for help developing their summer robotics camps. They have FIRST LEGO League and a new FIRST Tech Challenge team during the season but know that summer is a long time for kids and want to provide some fun camps in the meantime. If you are eager to share your knowledge with local kids please reach out to Dagoberto at plazacomunitariaencuentro@gmail.com  See the flyer for more information

5) Space Classes for Teachers

I was very excited to see this opportunity for teachers in my inbox. Earn PDUs and learn about space this summer in Portland. This class is not being run in conjunction with FIRST LEGO League or ORTOP, but we hope it will help our coaches as we get fired up for INTO ORBIT!

6) #Techniques - As Seen at World Festival - MyBlocks and Reusable Code

One of the things that is seen in use to varying degrees by most teams at the World Festival is the EV3 or NXT MyBlock (yes, some teams do use the NXT system still even at the World Festival). In its simplest form, a MyBlock is a small piece of code that can take inputs in to run its task and send outputs on to the rest of the code. In programming, it is known as a subroutine or a program within a program. 

Subroutines and MyBlocks, are a great way to make a very good, but slightly more complicated code that can be used to improve the performance of your robot in every mission you run. They also make troubleshooting your code easier! When you have MyBlocks that you know work, but code that isn't there are fewer steps to check to find the problem. MyBlocks also simplify big programs by putting reused chunks into single blocks instead of having them repeated with minor variations throughout the same program or all your programs.

One of the best ways I've ever seen MyBlocks used was by a multiage girls US team. The team had a set of 6 MyBlocks that performed the key routines of their robot (line following, smooth driving, etc) All the team members were taught to program using these MyBlocks instead of just the basic blocks. This is exactly how software companies share code in their projects. They also had all team members in one of three programming abilities and given tasks according to their ability. Beginners programmed easy missions with the help of an advanced program to error check. Intermediate programmers worked on harder missions. Advanced programmers in addition to overseeing beginners put the whole program together and cleaned up the final code to make it more stable and reusable. Every team member got to learn programming and even the beginners could explain the program to a judge or anyone else.

There are a million tutorials across the internet on how to make a MyBlock. In fact, some of the kids on the team may already know how to make one even if they don't really understand how to use one. Here is a nice tutorial I found that may resonate with your team.

7) Expert Night - SAVE THE DATES

We are working hard on the INTO ORBIT Expert Night. There will be a ticketing process (free for registered teams) to be announced. Right now, I am simply asking all teams to SAVE THE DATES. This year's Expert Nights will be October 17 and 18 at OMSI. There will be two sessions each night at 5 and 7 pm; teams will only be able to attend one session per day. If you are in the metro area we hope you will join us in person. If you are outside the metro area and would like to set up a stream viewing, we are working on that as well!  Trust me, you want to be there! We nearly have our title expert confirmed and it's going to be very exciting! 

I hope your team is having a wonderful summer and learning many new skills! We are working very hard all summer to bring you the best FIRST LEGO League season yet!

Best Wishes,
Loridee