Into Orbit

Core Values at the Tournament

amomentmaker

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When we went to the FIRST LEGO League regional championship tournament in our area, we were impressed by all of the examples of Core Values that we saw from the teams! The FIRST Core Values are a list of guidelines of how teams should act. They promote teamwork and “Coopertition” both within and between teams, as well as encouraging everyone to always treat others with “Gracious Professionalism.” This year FIRST made a list of consolidated Core Values across its different levels. In today’s article, we would like to share with you some examples of these Core Values being displayed at our tournament.

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Countdown on Hold…

amomentmaker

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Due to a facilities problem, our regional championship was canceled at the last minute. We want to thank FIRST and all the volunteers who had already spent countless hours planning and setting everything up for the tournament before the cancellation needed to occur.

We were of course very saddened to hear the news of the tournament being postponed. We sincerely hope that the championship will be able to be successfully rescheduled this year, so that all the teams will have an opportunity to share all that they have learned, accomplished, and worked so hard on this year.

Please excuse us from our regular blog post entries as we continue to prepare for our regional championship.

We know many FLL regions have already had their championships, but we want to wish good luck to teams who haven’t yet finished their competitions! Also, we want to wish good luck to all teams who have already moved on to preparing for a World Festival or another invitational!

FLL: Remember the 12” Ceiling in Base

amomentmaker

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We attended our qualifier competition last week! We had a great time and made a lot of good friends. We want to pass on an experience some teams faced there. Some teams forgot the 12 inch ceiling in base during launch and had to quickly redesign their robot/attachments. We were sad for them that they could not run all of the mission runs they had planned, but we were very impressed with their determination and quick-thinking in getting their robots under the 12 inch ceiling, so that the refs could allow them to launch from base.

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“Into Orbit” Kick-off Celebration for ACES-East

amomentmaker

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On Saturday, September 5, our local FIRST LEGO League (FLL) organization hosted a Kick-off Celebration for the Into Orbit 2018-2019 season at Space Center Houston. This is Houston’s first year to be part of ACES for FIRST in Texas. Some of the team was sick and couldn’t come, but luckily one of team mascots was able to make it — BURN-E our FIRST bear!

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The Extra Beam!

amomentmaker

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LEGO is pretty generous. In all of their sets, they have some extra pieces that are left over after following building instructions, but LEGO only gives you very small extra pieces, like studs, connectors, half bushes, etc. LEGO almost never gives you large extra pieces. If you have a large piece left over after building a set, check through the instructions again to see if you missed putting that piece in the model as part of the steps. In recent LEGO sets, each step has an inventory listed for the step. To avoid leaving pieces out while we build, we like to find the pieces for each step and make sure we use them all before moving on. When we have a large piece like a full brick or beam left over, we scan the inventory listed for each step to look for the type/color of piece we have left over. Usually, we find the step we overlooked that piece. It has happened to us many times in different LEGO sets we build.

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