Christmas Band Recital

 The middle school band had their Christmas recital last week.  I must admit, that my expectations were low.  I mean, these kids haven't been playing that long so I thought the songs would sound really bad.  Man, was I wrong.  The kids did a fantastic job.  I was pretty impressed- especially with their band director for getting them to play this well in such a short period of time.  Olivia is certainly enjoying being in the band and learning to play the French horn. 

Robotics Update: One qualified, one to go

The kids attended their second robotics competition of the season in early December.  Olivia's team has worked to improve their robot, and they've fixed some of the issues that they had in the first competition.  They drove well and finished in the middle of the pack.  They plan to make further improvements over the Christmas holiday.  These kids are working their butts off on this robot, and I am proud of their progress.




If you will recall, Owen's robot had some major issues at the first competition and they finished last.  I am pleased to report that the problems have been fixed, and they rocked it at the second competition.  They finished second in skills and also second in alliance.  Better yet, they qualified for state.  Owen was so excited!  

Tech Fair

 The kids each completed a project for their school system's tech fair again this year.  Olivia competed in the category of 3D modeling.  For her project, she designed and built a roller coaster using No Limits2 software.  She worked really hard on her project.  Not only did she work on it for hours at home, but she also did several "run-throughs" of her presentation.  She was noticeably nervous on the day of the competition.  Her efforts paid off, and she was awarded the first place medal. 

Owen and his partner entered in the category of device modification.  They worked on their project at school, so I didn't really know what they were doing until the day of the competition.  I still don't know if I understand it.  Basically, they are using a device called a makey makey to change a computer program.  In this case, they hook some wires up to various fruits and play a piano on the computer using the fruit.  They also did well and finished in second place.  The top two finishers in each category move on to the regional competition, so both kids will be competing again in January. 

November at the Zoo

Every November the city of Jacksonville hosts a "kids free" event in which kids get admission into various places for free.  The Jacksonville Zoo is a participant in this event.  We haven't visited the zoo in a couple of years, so we decided to head that way.  We had a great time.  They have installed a new "great ape" area since we were last there, and it is impressive.  We enjoyed seeing it as well as the other animal exhibits. 

The Fair

The kids' robotics teams had a booth at the fair this year.  The goal of the booth was to let people know about the VEX program in hopes that it would raise interest / inspire other schools to start their own teams (so that we don't have to travel so far to compete).  During their two-hour shift, the kids talked to passers-by about the program and did robot demonstrations.  Once their shift was over, we went and rode the rides for about an hour.  Even though they enjoyed the rides, they wanted to be with their friends who were still at the booth. For this reason we went back and stayed at the booth until it closed for the evening.  We had been at the fair for five hours at this point, so we decided to grab a bite to eat.  The fair was much more crowded in the evening than it had been earlier in the day.  Still, we were able to squeeze in a few more rides and attractions. Our last stop was at the snack booth to get funnel cake and fried Oreos before heading home.  It was a full but fun day.

Hot Air Balloons

 Our neighboring county celebrated its bicentennial with a hot air balloon festival.  Hot air balloons are not common in our area, so we were sure to take advantage of having them so close.  We made it to the festival in time to see the balloons glow and take a tethered balloon ride.  Bad weather was rolling in, so the festivities were cut short for us.  Still, we enjoyed the festival for the time that we were there.

Elementary and Middle School Robotics

It's a good thing that the kids really like robotics because we are going to be spending a lot of time with VEX IQ this year.  Both kids recently had their first tournament of the season, and since we are doing both middle and elementary robotics this was an all-day affair.  And, yes, we are still the only teams south of the Atlanta area, so we have to drive a long way to even be able to compete. 

  Olivia is on the middle school team this year, and it is much more involved than the elementary team.  The kids do EVERYTHING (design, build, program, troubleshoot,  strategize, etc) themselves at the middle school level.  The middle school has six robots, and Olivia is on robot Z.  Robot Z is special because it is the "girl-powered" bot purchased with a grant.  Her team, therefore, is made up mostly (60%) of girls.  All of the kids on her team work well together.  Their robot performed pretty well at competition.  There are some things they plan to change, but it went well overall.  They had a solid middle-of-the-pack finish.  During the awards ceremony, they learned that they had won the Judge's Award based on their team interview and notebook.  The judges noted that their team exhibited great teamwork and creativity.  This is the first time that either of my kids have won a trophy at a competition, so Olivia was over the moon.  Another of the middle school teams won the whole thing and two teams qualified for state.  It was a great day for the Robogators.

 

 After a the middle school competition, it was time to watch Owen and the elementary team.  The elementary team had four robots competing at this tournament.  Unfortunately, things did not go so well for Robot A (Owen's bot).  They just could not catch a break. There were some glitches with the bot and they had terrible luck with alliance matches.  They finished at the back of the pack- which was definitely unexpected.  They are determined, however, to fix the robot, regroup, and try again. While this is not the start we wanted, we could still have a great season- and that's what we're hoping for.