Victory! The Super Ninja Bunnies claimed victory at the qualifier competition on December 8th.

Victory! The Super Ninja Bunnies claimed victory at the qualifier competition on December 8th. The judging sessions went amazingly, and we were certain that the judges appreciated our Smartcane presentation. Our first try of the robot game only got us 151 points, but we more than made up for it during the second round, with our winning score of 433 points. The third and fourth try also went pretty smoothly. Also, we were awarded the prizes for both Robot Performance and Core Values. So, all in all, it was a great experience for our entire team.

-by Johnny

Gracious Professionalism

It is interesting to find out what kids were talking gracious professionalism. Tianhao said it was hard to work in a team. That is true. At the beginning of this season when we got the team set up, communication was our major problem. Team members weren't communicate very well. This is their new experience in life. Teamwork is just a word and doesn't mean anything. We did a few communication tests, and learnt a lot from those games. It was fun. Gracious professionalism means communication, teamwork, fairness and respect.

We have a solution

It took a long time for the team to agree on one solution. Every team member has a different opinion of what an innovative solution should be. We had multiple brainstorm sessions and group discussions, and eventually came up with our final solution. It was a team effort and team decision. It is Smart Cane, a.k.a. iCane.

Research

It took us a long time to identify a problem that we want to chase down for a solution. After many white board and brainstorm sessions, we ended up with top three problems for each of which we would create an innovative solution. The final solution was gone through a voting process. Coaches and kids all agreed on our final solution. 

Teamwork Games

We had some fun with those teamwork related games. In two of these games, team members are assigned with different roles: one observer, two messengers, and one builder. The observer will see the model that is already built. Only the observer can see the model and he needs to describe what he observes to the first messenger, the first messenger then tell what he is being told to the second messenger. The second messenger then tells the builder. The builder then completes the build. At the end, we will compare between the original model and the model they built and see if the model is being built the way it should be. This is actually a communication test to the team. 

Each member can only see one side of the model. Then they  get together to  complete the mode build. The left one is the original model. The right one is what the team completed.

November Scrimmage

We went to the November Scrimmage on Friday November 16. It was a good opportunity to get our team out there and do some practice in a new environment, and also to see how other teams are doing. If we could learn some thing new, that would be extra. It turned out that it was a fun successful event. We realized that we have many areas that need to be improved on.

Team T-shirts are ordered

Eventually we submitted the purchase order for our team T-shirts. This is done from an online custom shirt site at http://www.spreadshirt.com. I've never done a custom T-shirt before so let us see.