Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Fun at FIRST LEGO League 2008

Last Saturday, about 72 teams of kids, ages 9 to 14, converged on the campus of Iowa State University to compete in the 2008 Iowa FIRST LEGO League. The competition itself was held in Howe Hall, hosted by the College of Engineering. The teams use the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit to build a robot capable of completing a number of specified tasks autonomously on a prearranged playing field.

For the last couple of years, I have worked with my friend Paul Jewell, who is the Technical Director for the event, to help broadcast it live for all the parents, grandparents and friends who can't attend so they can watch and participate.

ISU Extension supports the event by broadcasting it live (that's where I come in) on the web using their Adobe Connect conferencing system. The broadcast went very well. Even though we were pushing out a large amount of video, we continuously had over 100 participants online and ended up connecting about 600 individuals to the event.

It is a massive, crazy and fun event... in which Camille Schroeder, Director of ISEK and Brandon Newendorp (the young man in the jester hat in the video) as well as a multitude of volunteers somehow manage to bring it all together and create a very sucessful and enjoyable day for all the participating kids and their families.

Ann Bugler helped me take some video of the event to give you a sample of the fun and action. Oh and my son and daughter helped with the event as well (near the end of the video).


Iowa FIRST LEGO League 2008 from Floyd Davenport on Vimeo.

2 comments:

iowaarcheryboy said...

I loved it! Thanks for sharing your video with us!! NOTE: Team 635 (I was rooting for because they have a 4-H affiliation!!) :) GO 4-H FLL Teams!! :)

Unknown said...

Your help with this event is priceless. Thanks for not only for the expertise, but mostly for being pumped about the program!