RobBlog

One of the reporters who talked to us in Tokyo, Tomoko Otake, has published an article about us in the Japan Times. You can read it here.

She also published a more general article about home education.

Because of patchy Internet access and being busy in the competition, we are not posting in the published order. We are putting posts in the order in which they happened. This means that there may be some new stuff further down the page here that you have not yet read.

Please use the list on the right to navigate to posts you have not seen - new posts created on a day are preceded by !!. Latest update was done on 5 May 2008.

Official videos have been posted at http://www.publicnet.tv/jocw_list.cgi?tag=FLLOACpr.

On the last day, as the refs and eight finalists prepared for the fnal matches, the rest of us had time for a photo opportunity and some fun. We were joined by Kai, the 11-year-old son of one of our Japanese supporters.

In the evening of day two, the organisers laid on a party for the teams where there was the opportunity to participate in or watch traditional Japanese activities.

Kimono wearing

Origami

Kick-boxing

We ran our RCX robot twice and our NXT once. Simon, James and Aidan did a very good job: the RCX scored 325 points both times and the NXT scored 195 points. This was not good enoough to get us into the finals – three teams scored 400 points in all three preliminary rounds and all eight teams in the finals scored at least two 400s.

When not busy taking part in rounds on the table, the teams could get involved in other activities. In the foyer, there were tables full of LEGO and Colin made this representation of our logo:

The teams collaborated to make this mosaic from LEGO:

The teams paraded on in alphabetical order of country. They were greeted by the comperes and there was a photo opportunity.

Official video of TechHEds in the opening ceremony (video, 23s)

Today was our first day at the competition. We had four practice rounds, but the batteries were really bad so it didn’t go well. We then had our Research Presentation about making the Oasis Sports Centre more energy efficient. We also had our teamwork conversation, which is pretty self explanatory. Finally, we had our Technical presentation about our robot, attachments, software, Strategic Objects (SOs) and strategy itself. Shena went to a mentors’ meeting and we left for dinner.

All the teams were assigned a small pit area. This was where they kept all their stuff, repaired their robots and showcased their country and their team.

The TechHEds setting up the pit area.

Our banner hanging from the second floor spectators’ area.