It was great fun today at the Livingston FTC Scrimmage to meet up with the FTC mentoring teams, the FTC new comers and our old friends from FLL. Landroids spent the day volunteering and participated in the FTC alliance games, going head-to-head with the FLL graduates such as RoboInvaders and Nano Guru. Special thanks to the veteran FTC teams from North Brunswick HS, Morrestown Friends School, Ridgefield HS and Livingston HS, to demonstrate their Tetrix robots and paired up with the rookies. Also, many thanks to Vince and Pat for tirelessly organizing this event, and for Livingston HS to host the first of a series of 2009 FTC summer outreach and workshops. For pictures from the event, click here.

There is an interesting article in the June ‘09 issue of Popular Science Magazine about Dean Kamen and FIRST. Have you ever wonder why Dean always wears jeans and jean shirt? What did he invent? What does he do for fun?  Somewhere, somehow, find out why is he so obsessed with FIRST. Read on.

Check out Landroids in these latest FLL Promo videos (on vimeo.com)

FLL 2009 Promo 001,  FLL 2009 Promo 002

NJ FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) will be hosting a series of summer Outreach Scrimmages. First stop, the northern region event will be held at Livingston High School on June 27, 2009.

For those FLL teams who are ready to start an FTC team, this “Outreach Scrimmage” is a perfect pre-season opportunity to learn what FTC is all about.

Read more »

If you are new to the FIRST LEGO League, this 5-week free summer training is designed for the FLL rookies (students and coaches).

Starting on 7/9/09, each Thursday evening from 7 pm to 9 pm, the Landroids members will present a 2-hour FLL training session to give an overview of the FLL preparation and competition.

Week 1:    Robot Design and Programming (in Robolab and NXT-G) - Karlin

Week 2:    Project Research - Gregory

Week 3:    Team work and Robot Strategy - Stanley

Week 4:    Documenting, prepare for robot competition - Jeffrey

Week 5:    Public Presentation, prepare for judging sessions – Gage

Read more »

It has been an exciting week coming home from Ohio.  First, we had to make up all the missing homework, tests and final exam. Then there were many hours spent with the reporters.   In between, some of us managed to squeeze in a fishing tournament, while all of us got to munch on the macadamia nut chocolates (courtesy of Iolani Roboraiders).

This week, Landroids has been featured in the Star Ledger, HCHY, AlternateivePress, West Essex Tribune, Battelle announcement and the World Journal.  Team photos from the US Open are now available.  Check out the excitements!  Wouldn’t you want to be in FLL this season?

Team Landroids, represented New Jersey, competed in the 2009 FIRST LEGO League United States Open Championship held in Dayton, Ohio from 5/7/09 - 5/9/09 (results, 5 pages), winning teams.  With 9 months of hard work and dedication, our team of five 7th graders took home:

Landroids at 2009 FLL US Open

1st place Champion’s Award, which is the most prestigious award for excellent performance in Research Project, Robot Design, and Team Work.

Battelle Award for Innovation in Science, which is a $6,000 STEM scholarship, plus each student will have his own Battelle mentor from now till they graduate from college, for summer internship and future career placement consultations.

The Wright Paterson Air Force Base Founder’s Award for outstanding educational and community outreach.

1st place Robot Alliance Award: Iolani Roboraiders + Landroids + ZBOTs

Go Spartans!!

6th place in Robot Performance, out of 60 State Champion’s teams from US.

Multiple Gracious Professionalism acknowledgements.

It has been an amazing journey meeting all the FLL Champion’s teams from around the country. We were very surprised and pleased to receive these recognitions.