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Tasmania's (second - first?) First LEGO League (FLL) tournament - 2009

1 Results (unofficial): This discussion is unofficial and suggested results below should be treated as rumours, because a request to release the tournament results was refused (unlike some tournaments overseas, e.g. for FFL click here or here, for International RoboCup click here or here, for Australian RoboCup click here or here). For some Tasmanians this is a matter for concern when  there is an offer of a $1,500 scholarship contingent on these results. A more transparent selection procedure would hopefully alleviate some of the concerns that have been expressed privately to me.

The tournament was held on Thursday 5th November 2009 at MacKillop College in Hobart. Approximately 70 students from 8 schools competed. The teams were BishBash, Cheese, Delicious Cake, HSC, KW09, Macktrack, Robot Rebels, SVC Autobots, SVC Constructions and Trackstar - 8 being from Secondary Schools, 2 from Primary Schools.

Very special congratulations are due to "SVC Constructions" (Lewis, Tim, Josh, Aaron, James and their mentor Ty Capach), who were offered, and accepted the scholarship. They travelled to Brisbane for the National FLL Final held on 28th November. They achieved a second placing in the National Robotic Challenge and were well placed in the other facets of the tournament (see page 5 of the reference here) - a tremendously good result - good work guys!

1.1 Discussion of Local Results: Each team's robots had three runs, points being gained by achieving various objectives around the course. The teams also gave a presentation and were interviewed, all three elements counting towards the final overall team ranking.

1.1.1 Robot Results discussion: Our best guess of these results is as follows (as is consistent with FLL practice overseas, the team names have been replaced by numbers).

The standard of competition was high, and congratulations are due to all competitors, although with regard to the results listed below, special mention could be made of three efforts. Firstly, Team 32 for their consistently excellent performance, which assisted their claim for the scholarship; secondly feminists may be interested that in a competition where girls are historically under-represented, team 17 was an all-girl  young (first year Secondary School) team, and thirdly the youngest competitors in the tournament (Team 37 from a Grade 4/5 country Primary School) achieved equal fourth place.

Team	Run 1	Run 2	Run 3
32	245	235	200
17	200	210	235
97	115	215	130
37	200	165	130
67	185	105	200
21	55	135	165
91	105	75	165
99	75	120	110
59	105	95	115
64	95	35	90

Considering how the runs could be compared, three main ways suggest themselves; best only (current Tasmanian First LEGO League practice), total points (rewards consistency), and total points dropping the worst score (current RoboCup Rescue practice, rewards consistency without penalty for one disastrous run). The results rankings by each of these methodologies would be:

It will be noted that the leading two results are reassuringly the same for each methodology - although the effect of one (freakishly good?) run can be seen in the changed ranking of team 97. Using the "best score" methodology does make for an "exciting contest", but RoboCup Rescue experience prefers their methodology as they believe that it produces a "fairer result".

1.1.2 Combined Ranking (final result): The rankings for the Presentation and Interview will not be publicised here, as the methodology of combining these with the Robot ranking from the table above have not been publicised and hence is generally unknown. As commented above, this has been presented to me as a matter for concern - again as commented above, a more transparent and open process should hopefully alleviate these types of concern.

2 Naming confusion: It seems the event run last year is now to be regarded as a pre-cursor to a broader competition, and the event this year is now to be called the first First LEGO League tournament in Tasmania. Hmmmm, computer science nerds have a habit of starting counting from zero; so it seems the tournament last year is now to be called the zeroth tournament...

3 FLL 2009 Challenge Summary: This was for teams (assisted by mentors) to research and provide solutions to the theme of "SMART MOVES" featuring Transport and Logistics. The teams gain points by presenting these solutions verbally to judges, often using audio and visual aids. The teams also built an autonomous robot to solve Challenges set around this theme by First LEGO League for 2009.

A free First LEGO League workshop to introduce mentors to this year's theme was run on 26th June, 2009 at the MacKillop College. The workshop was run by Robotics Tasmania.

4 First LEGO League Kits became available in the first week of the Tasmanian September School holidays, at a cost of $150 plus postage (approx. $25) from National LEGO distributors MTA (First LEGO League information can be seen on page 23 of their catalogue, that can be slowly downloaded by clicking here), and Moore Education.

5 Registration for the competition was rather expensive at $100 per team. Registration for this event was available through the Australian First LEGO League Web Site, click here.  A website that offers a lot of additional resources for this challenge can be found here. An unofficial copy of the 2009 rules can slowly downloaded by clicking here. A local addendum can be seen by clicking here. The International First LEGO League Web Site can be seen by clicking here.

Perfect 400 point runs:- To get some ideas for your own approach, take a look at some of these incredible runs by the overseas teams Hold, Claws, Comets,  DarkHorse,  NXTGeneration, Antipodes, Cougar, Dor, FastCats, DennoDK, LEGORobotChickens, UpNeXT, TechnoKids, ThunderBrains, Stevehyt, LEGOInParadise, 8ButtHead, LEGOLakers, FrogSquad, Edisons,  WestSide, 103Clarke, Llama, BremenBotz and MrLEGO.

www.DrGraeme.net - Tasmanian First LEGO League for 2009