The Table

Okay, I said I would post about how I made a portable FLL table.  Before I do, let me tell you how I came up with the idea.

Problem:  I needed a portable table that would fit in a Mini-Cooper.  I have to transport the table back and forth once a week (loading and unloading) to where our FLL team meets.

Research: I looked online at tables some others teams had built (styro-foam borders and board), but nothing seemed practical for what I needed.  They looked like they would get broken too easy and were quite expensive.  I got to brainstorming.

Solution:  Here is what I came up with for the off season.  After the fact I had built this, I saw another team had used some foam mats with wooden borders.  That would have made life a little bit easier if I had found those instructions previously than figuring it out on my own.  I always have to do everything the hard way.

All you need to do is put it together and put a mat on top and you are good to go.  The mat featured here was from the Power Puzzles season.  It was given to us by the local middle school.  What I liked about it was the puzzle pieces.  You usually associate puzzle pieces with Autism, so it was perfect.  Asperger's Syndrome is on the Autism Spectrum.

 As you can see we do not have the Lego Pieces for the mat.  We kind of created our own missions which were very basic.  We did one mission per kid to give them a sense of accomplishment.

Here is how I made it.

What you need:

Play mats from Sam's Club.
Foam pipe insulators from Home Depot or Lowe's 
Edge already on mat

Cost around $30 total

First you need to put 8 squares together with the side pieces attached laying flat.  Then you flip it over to the grey side.  Number each piece and draw a diagram on grey side for kids to be able to put together themselves. 

I also labeled the side foam pieces so they would know how to put them on the foam table.  They were labeled B for Bottom, S for Side.  I had to distinguish which side they were , left or right.  So "BL" would go on the bottom left side, and "2S" would be on the second mat, side piece.  It took the kids a few times to master it.  Labeling is very important because you want to put it together the same way every time.  If the kids ask why something doesn't line up I will ask them if they followed the diagram.

Then you flip all the side pieces of the foam table so they are perpendicular.  Here is what I mean...

Here is another example looking from another direction. I made sure I locked the edge by pushing it in as shown in the bottom picture.

After that, you cut the foam inserts to the size of each individual square.  At first I left the pieces long on the sides, but It was a pain to carry.  To get them to fit in a bag I ended up making them the same size as the foam side pieces.

Then after I had turned all the sides up, I put the foam insulators over the side pieces.  You can wrap them to fit over the whole side piece or you can just lay them on top of the side piece.

The foam insulators go around the whole outside edge.  This will keep your robot within the confines of the table.  You can set this up on a table with legs or on the floor.

After I put the foam insulators on, I laid down the Puzzle Power mat and put Velcro between the mat and the foam table.  If you don't put the table squares together the same way the Velcro won't line up. 

Here is the finished table before adding the Power Puzzle mat!

another picture...

There you go...a portable table that doesn't weigh much and can be transported in a Mini-Cooper.  I do not know how this would work in a Smart car.

My regular season mat has the wooden boards assembled together with corner brackets and straight metal pieces for the middle sides.  I also used an extra piece of wood to stabilize the middle sections.

I drew a diagram on the foam table to let the kids know how to put together the wooden boards.  Each side and middle has a baggie full of wing-nuts and screws labeled.  The corner brackets are labeled too.

This can also be transported in my Mini-Cooper.  The only problem since I added the boards is, I can't fit my kid in the car.  Oh well, you can't have everything! :)