Our homeschool co-op is working on putting together one or more teams, and I thought I might get a quick answer to a JFLL question here:

In the *Junior* FLL, are there robotics involved? There's not, right? Just a model made with Lego bricks?

No robots in JFLL....only LEGO bricks. Last year a motor was involved and you had to have at least one moving thing on your LEGO creation. Ours was a blender which moved. And something at the powerplant which moved. The motors are the new Power FUnctions motors in some of the newest TEchnic LEGO kits.

Hey I just got my catalog from Lego Education yesterday. The girls are going crazy! I may begin with simple machines and Engineering I before I invest in NXT. I'd really like to know more about that software from Carnegie Mellon that is supposed to be a course they can work through.
I did see a book: Maximum Lego NXT: Building robots with Java Brains.
One bullet describes: Learn JAVA, using our complete beginner's guide.
This looks promising for someone looking for additional challenge and it's good to see you can "grow" with the product because it's a considerable sum for a "toy"

You can program in several C-like languages as well as Java. But there are many adults who do some amazing things w/ NXT-G...sure the programming might be more challenging but it's certainly doable.

That LEGO ED catalogue certainly is enticing isn't it?

Yes, that calalog got everyone's engine revving around here, especially DH!

I'm glad to know there are so many possibilities with the system. That makes me feel better about the outlay of $. I'm glad I looked into it. I wonder why my friend was so discouraging of it. The way she described it, it sounded so lame and limiting. From what I see here, the girls can use it for a few years to come here doing different things. And if they aren't into it, it sure looks like DH will be! Maybe this is something DH and I can work on as a couple project if the girls ditch it. Getting carried away now...................

LOL Kids do this into college. Right now they are building LEGO MINDSTORMS robots to go up in the next Atmospheric balloon launch in AZ in the Fall. All sorts of things there - how to survive the pressure, how to survive the fall, what will the NXT be measuring etc. A few of the adults at the NXTSTEP blog don't have kids!

We do tend to go in phases like any toy....we pick it up hot and heavy, then move on to something else, then pick it up again. That's why I wanted to do the LEGO Mars Base Command mission - to give us something targeted to do.

Who was it that was ordering an NXT? Did you get it? How is it going?

I'm too tired to read the entire thread again but I recall someone was also going to do Jim Kelly's Mars Mission Base Command challenge? How's it going? We have one more mission to build and we'll start on the robot.

For those interested, hop on over to http://www.thenxtstep.blogspot.com/ and read Brian Davis' blog on his NXT payload as well as the other NXT payloads which will be launched in the HALE mission.

Me!! It's here, DS and I played with it one whole day, installed the software, and then things got really busy and it's been sitting there staring at me... Wednesday we're having a friend over who will almost certainly go straight for that to play with (and I trust him not to break it...), so it will get played with I promise! And actually the ridiculously-busy phase should be starting to ease off in about six hours (swim team, cat sitting, and a series of appointments), so there's hope for the rest of the summer too... LOL

If anyone is on the fence about buying - there is a coupon code for $20% off and free shipping so that's $200 for a retail NXT kit. The price is not to beat. If you want details, go to http://thenxtstep.blogspot.com/

Dazey!!!!!!

i love you i hate you i love you i hate you i love you i hate you.


Oy,
My husband is going to kill me.........here I go!