Our first meeting we got to know each other, explained what the FLL was all about, and filled out registration forms. Then all we had time for was learning about this years challenge. We played a game called "Triage" to learn about how to help people during disasters. The board is divided into hexagons. As we play and take turns we go through the natural course of a day in a disaster. As the day ramps up the disaster gets bigger. Our job is to save as many people as we can by getting them to the safe zone.
QR Coders which stands for Quick Response Coders. We had an idea that we could use a QR Code kind of like the familiar 911 to help us with our solution. We want to help people during, before and after a Tornado disaster. We chose Tornadoes to focus on because they are prevalent here in Alabama. We had just gone through the April 27th tornadoes a couple of years ago and wanted to help others know what to do in similar situations. We decided our project would be to create a website that was informational yet fun.
After brainstorming we got to work learning to program. We were able to get a NXT to do a move block test. The kids figured out they could turn the NXTs and spin around.
Our third meeting I had a surprise I had been working on to show the kids. We (son and I) built a tornado simulator using dry ice. We used the epilogue laser cutter down at MindGear Labs to cut out the parts. We then glued the parts together and powered our creation by small fans and a battery pack. We put dry ice in a container and pored hot water over it. Then we set the tornado simulator on top and turned it on. Here was the result.
After this the kids worked on programming and building missions.
We were building those missions the next couple of meetings. There are 10 of them and they seemed to take forever. Of course I could have built them at home but what would be the fun in that. The challenge comes out soon so we wanted to be prepared.
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