Our tournament today was a big success! We arrived a little bleary eyed at 7 AM, but by 8 AM everyone was ready to go and our school gym was buzzing with activity as teams arrived and set up, robots were tested on practice tables.
All morning teams presented their projects, robots, and core values for judging panels.
The hallways were buzzing with excited teams, coaches and parents. For some teams this was their very first FLL competition!
Each team was assigned a K-Bot to be their guide for the day. We love making connections with our FLL friends and we look forward to seeing them in the next few years at competition, and eventually when they join us in high school!
We showed our past season’s robot and offered driving lessons to our younger friends. Many parents and judges were really intrigued with what we can accomplish during a 6 week build season. We invited them to come and visit us sometime in January to see us in action!
Along with the FLL tournament, we also had a Jr. FLL Expo happening at the same time. Our two teams were the Mini W.A.F.F.L.E.S. from Kingston, and the GermBusters from Brampton Ontario. Many thanks to the GermBusters for making the trip to Kingston to join us. We hope to see them again next year!
Our good friend the blue bear showed up to help pump up the crowd. The blue bear got lots of hugs from young and old alike.
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All day teams spent their time programming and tweaking their robots to perform all of the required missions.
There were demonstrations for local news media…
…and lots of anxious moments at the game tables
…and then we danced…
….and danced….
…even the referees danced!
We danced until we got tired.
Thanks so much to the DJs from our high school radio station 91.9FM CKVI The Cave for making sure there were always great dancing songs ready to go!
The prizes were announced at the end of the tournament. We love to line up and give high fives to everyone as they collect their participation medals and their prizes.
Congratulations to Mrs. Dossett for earning the Adult Mentor Award
Congratulations to Wesley for earning the Young Adult Mentor Award
Congratulations also to the W.A.F.F.L.E.S., winners of the Champion’s Award, and Lancaster Roarbotics for qualifying for the Provincial competition in January. We wish you all the best in your preparations for the next level of competition!
Other Awards
Robot Design Award: Lancaster Roarbotics
Robot Performance Award: Lancaster Roarbotics
Core Values Award: The Rhinobots
Project Award: The Roborhinos
Volunteer Award: John Shaw, our head judge from OPG Nuclear
robotics is the gateway drug for our future!
Thanks to all of the K-Bots who helped to keep things running smoothly today, from set up and registration, timing, cuing, working with FLL teams, working with judges, driving our robot, monitoring practice tables, being referees MCs DJs and the blue bear, cooking lunch, moving tables, writing thank you cards, taking great photographs, operating video cameras, making slideshows, dancing with enthusiasm, talking with media, and helping with all of the clean up. Special thanks to Christine for organizing the entire event.
See you all again on Thursday when we’ll go to Transformix for a tour (time is not yet confirmed). Permission forms are needed to go on this field trip. Parent drivers would be greatly appreciated too–there are volunteer driver forms to fill out before driving.
While the party was going on, there were some of us hard at work packing up tools and working on rewiring our electrical box.
Before heading home we voted on our robot’s name. There were so many very creative names that had been suggested online, and several that had evolved from the craziness of our group.
It’s hard to believe that day 2 of build season was as fun as kick off! After dreaming of robot designs all night, we had lots of ideas to start sketching out and prototyping. We appreciate the help of our mentors every step of the way!
Along with the robot and minibot we are focusing on building parts of the field. We’ve got lots of PVC pipe and wood that we’re cutting up to make the scoring rack. We also unrolled the carpet that we got last year at GTR. We’re hoping to get a warehouse space to set up a partial field later this season.
We are mentoring team 3710, the Cyber Falcons, and are starting to make a series of videos to give them helpful hints throughout build season. It’s also a great way to show everyone just how much fun we are having. At K-Botics we encourage public displays of fun!
Today we filmed many topics, and will edit them into some short videos over the next few days. We had a lot of fun making our dance videos! 
We had hoped that our tournament would be a qualifying regional tournament, but unfortunately there weren’t enough teams signed up by the deadline, so we changed it into a practice tournament. A few other teams and community groups decided to join in with the Lego fun. To add to the fun of the day, we were glad to have Karthik as our M.C. for the tournament. He helped get people enthusiastic, and informed about the FLL game Body Forward.
In the morning the Discobots, Legendary Lego Legion, Vanier Vipers and the 
Helped by mentors from Queen’s University, and K-Botics, these inexperienced teams learned how to build and program a robot to accomplish several missions. One of these rookie teams, the 
During the day we had demonstrations of our robot from the Breakaway challenge last year. It’s always neat to watch people’s faces when we open up the electrical box.
We were also glad that the local 
Throughout the day, we focused on creating an enthusiastic, fun, welcoming and spirited environment. A big part of this spirit involved the presence of our KCVI mascot, the blue bear.
Anika made friends with the blue bear at the FLL practice tournament that we hosted last year, and it appears that they are still good friends now!
They danced together when the music played….and they weren’t the only ones dancing!
Our dance lessons helped us get EVERYONE involved…even Vanier’s Viper!
The field table competition happened in the afternoon. Round robin play was followed by the playoff rounds. Each team should be proud of what they accomplished.
When we step back and reflect on the day, we are proud of what was accomplished by our team, and by the FLL and Jr. FLL teams. We wish them all well on their upcoming regional qualifying tournaments, and hope that our day helped provide important feedback and useful practice on the field tables.
Congratulations to all of the teams! We look forward to seeing you all again next year.
We also received a package for our beta-testers. It’s so exciting to be able to start our testing with our new hardware.
Our team of keen programmers are learning lots every day! We have many new members who are excited to see the guts of last year’s robot, and learn how the programming makes it move and operate.
Our builders were hard at work refining our prototypes as well.
It’s nice to get the chance to show off the product of our many hours of work during build season.
Dance lessons are a wonderful team bonding activity, and a great way to take a moment away from the stress of robot building and programming. We’ve now been warned by the mentors that from time to time over the next few days they will put on some music to test that we are remembering the steps that go to all of the songs.
