"I do not fear computers; I fear the lack of them", Isaac Asimaov

The name of our team comes from a character in Isaac Asimov's book "I Robot".

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Competition Video

We had some practice time before the competition began.



We shot the high goal and some outside goal shots.



This is our second match. We were the only team to score any goals.

Practice before competition

We had a power outage just before the FTC Washington state competition. I powered up the generator to run a couple of lights and a heater.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

"Little Lost Robot" wins Award in State Robotics Championship


Fairwood’s Team “Little Lost Robot” Win’s Award in State Robotics Championship

“I do not fear computers; I fear the lack of them” Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov is quoted on the back of the team’s shirts and inspired the team name. Fairwood’s own robotics team, “Little Lost Robot”, competed in the Washington State First Tech Challenge robotics championships on  December 13.

The Team placed 19th out of 31 teams. This is not bad for a first year team of 12 & 13 year olds against highschool teams with many years of experience. "Little Lost Robot" also won the ‘FTC Think Award’ for the team that best reflects the “journey” as they experienced it through the engineering design process during the build season. The award is based on the design and documentation in their Engineering Notebook .  The team’s notebook details the design and build stage of the team’s robot.  Journal entries include the steps, brainstorms, designs, re-designs, successes, and those ‘interesting moments’ when things weren’t going as planned.


Pictured above are the "Little Lost Robot" team members
Back: Edson Smith, Nick Stafford, Kempton Snyder, Adam Willetts
Front: Ryan Hess, Chris Madden, and Jack Kelly

Pictured above is a practice match for the team (Robot #3721).  The task for the robot was to release, pick up, and shoot balls into one of 3 goals, ranging from 1 to 10 points.

Three team members participated in each match. The driver, (Kempton above center), and an operator to shoot the balls, (Chris above center, Jack, and Nick) and one coach (Edson above center). Team Little Lost Robot was the top point earner in 2 out of their 5 matches.


The team was made up of 7 boys but it took the support of many family members. The team is already looking forward to next season and is raising money selling subscriptions to Make magazine and looking for engineering mentors and local companies as sponsors. If you are interested in supporting your local robotics team email coach Jim jim@smith.net


Congratulations FTC Team #3721 - Little Lost Robot!!



Monday, December 7, 2009

The "Axe" is working!



It took a few tries. We have just 6 days to competition.