This weekend, Steve Storck and I took a drive to watch the underwater robot competition at George Mason University in Fairfax VA.

It was a high school competition that used the robots that the kids built as part of their Introduction to Engineering classes one semester.

It was a lot of fun, and I've put together a video from the event (thanks to Steve for remembering to bring his camera)

It's Here on YouTube

Cow Power paid off BIG-TIME for NeXTGEN at the 2008 World Festival in Atlanta Georgia.

Their energy audit of the Swan Meadows School, and proposal for using a Methane Digester to produce Electricity (Cow Power) got the judge's attention, and won them a first place (Best in the world) for research quality.

NeXTGEN also got a table score of 399 out of 400 on practice-day, and an "official" score of 392 out of 400 on game day. Unfortunately, many teams scored a perfect 400, which took NeXTGEN out of the running for a trophy.

FIRST LEGO League Team 2764 (NeXTGEN) and FIRST Robotics Competition Team 1629 (GaCo) will be attending the 2008 Championship Event/World Festival at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia.

Click Here for event information.

Or Download the agenda.

The Garrett Engineering and Robotics Society (GEARS) is hosting a Super-SuGO (Sumo-LEGO) robot competition on Sunday April 6th.

Kids love to build BIG, so Super-SuGO will permit larger, heavier and more powerful LEGO robots, compared with previous SuGO events.

Teams of 2-5 participants will each build a programmed Sumo robot out of LEGOs and then compete on a 5-foot Sumo ring.

It’s fun, creative and it’s a great family activity. All the LEGO parts are provided, and rookie teams are very welcome (no experience necessary).

The robot performed really well at Annapolis, and we ended up in the 11th seed position out of 60 robots, with a 6:2 record.

This got us picked for the elimination matches, but we didn't get past the Quarter finals. D'oh.

The drive system performed fantastically and we're still on our first set of wheels with no sign of excessive wear on any threads.

We had a few technical problems (as expected in our first competition) but now we feel prepared for Cleveland :)

FIRST Robotics Competition team 1629 (The Garrett Coalition) will be competing in Annapolis Maryland on Thursday-Saturday.

Thursday is practice day, where we get our robot inspected (drill holes) and then practice with other teams.
Friday the Qualifying matches begin and the teams playoff to get ranked from best to worst.
Saturday morning is more qualifiers, and then just before lunch, the top 8 teams pick their alliance partners for the afternoon's elimination matches.

We will conclude this Tech Camp on Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. with the students presenting their projects and slideshows.

The 2008 Summer Technology Camp is an opportunity for students to expand their technology skills by applying them to real life applications. Students attending the camp will:

· Use LEGO components to build machines to perform specific tasks and use computers to control the machines they build.

We will conclude this Tech Camp on Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. with the students presenting their projects and slideshows.

The 2008 Summer Technology Camp is an opportunity for students to expand their technology skills by applying them to real life applications. Students attending the camp will:

· Use LEGO components to build machines to perform specific tasks and use computers to control the machines they build.

Despite a delayed pickup and a questionable lift mechanism, Meshach 4.0 left the GEARS building today at 5:22 pm. bound for temporary storage, before rejoining the team at the US NAVAL Accademy in Annapolis MD later in March.

Meshach performed well on Sunday at the open house. After some dings and dents due to collisions with the track walls, the tough little bot had some stronger parts installed late Monday night at GEARS.