Teachers! We know you spent the summer getting your classrooms ready for the school year and we want to see them!Post a picture of your classroom to our wall by this Friday, September 24th, and you’ll be entered to win one of twenty $50 gift certificates to ThinkGeek. (One entry per teacher!)

Check out the challenge from Thinkgeek and Donorschoose.org

If you’re not a teacher, don’t think that you can’t participate. Anyone can donate to DonorsChoose. There’s no minimum donation, so don’t feel sheepish about only donating a dollar or two. Every little bit helps, and reminds 

And anyone can ask for help also for a great project!  Check it out at DonorsChoose.org

Discover College, the dual-credit program at OCTC, and the Mechatronics program are hosting the STEM Innovation Celebration this Thursday, Sept. 15 from 5-7 p.m.

Please join OCTC to learn about the new game themes for FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Tech Challenge and enter for a chance to win a free national registration fee. In addition to these exciting opportunities, FLL teams that register at OCTC only pay a $15 site fee ($10 savings) and FTC teams that register at OCTC only pay a $50 site fee ($100 savings).

They are proud to present Dr. Bruce Kessler, Associate Dean of the Ogden College of Science & Engineering at WKU. He will present about his exciting work with “Operation Comics,” a series of comics following Wonderguy a superhero that find himself in need of using math more than strength. It promises to be an exciting evening celebrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. For more information please contact Katie Payne at 270.852.8616 .

The current issue of Kentucky Living has an article on Creativity + Learning = Fun (Ideas to help you think inside, outside, and upside down in the box!)  The first part is about mathcounts (another great thing my kids participate in) and on page 40 there is a section on a FIRST LEGO League team.  The LEGO Barbarians from Greenup County.  You can find the article here (with out pics and no formatting).  I love the quote:

That’s the power of a creative educational approach: it’s learning masked as fun.  

I love that about FLL.  It’s ‘sports for the mind’  There is more info on page 42 and 43 including pics of the table with the team the Accellerators.

Besides great info about FLL check the article out for info about Mathcounts, RCX (A robo Challenge Xtreme – search for Robo on the site), Destination Imagination and more.  There is also information about IdeaFestival which is coming up September 21 – 24 at Louisville.  Leonard Miodinow a physicist and former author of Star Trek will be a speaker this year!  Yeah!!!

“Keeping Food Safe”

Can FIRST® LEGO® League teams improve the quality of food by finding ways to prevent food contamination? In the 2011 Food Factor Challenge, over 200,000 9-14 year olds (US Ages)*  from over 55 countries will explore the topic of food safety and examine the possible points of contamination our food encounters – from exposure to insects and creatures, to unsterile processing and transportation, to unsanitary preparation and storage – then find ways to prevent or combat these contaminates. In the Food Factor Challenge, teams will build, test, and program an autonomous robot using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT to solve a set of Food Safety missions as well as research, develop, and share their innovative food safety solutions. Throughout their experience, teams will operate under FLL’s signature set of Core Values.

The FLL Core Values are the cornerstones of the FLL program. They are among the fundamental elements that distinguish FLL from other programs of its kind. By embracing the Core Values, participants learn that friendly competition and mutual gain are not separate goals, and that helping one another is the foundation of teamwork.

•  We are a team.
•  We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors.
•  We know our coaches and mentors don’t have all the answers; we learn together.
•  We honor the spirit of friendly competition.
•  What we discover is more important than what we win.
•  We share our experiences with others.
•  We display Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition in everything we do.

Registration is going on now for Food Factor!  Teams can be school, organizations, or neighborhood.

*16 in some countries

Check out the new App from Tech Brick for scoring Food Factor on the Android


http://www.techbrick.com/Lego/Lego2011/Resources/smartphones2011.htm

LegoScore 11: Food FactorAndroid App by Paul Asp
A scoring application forFirst Lego League (FLL) teams to use in competition for the 2011-2012 season”Food Factor” robot competition.

The program includes:

• - instant score total
• - ability to save scores with date and time of run
• - view the scores by list
• - built-in 2:30 timer
• - graph the scores to see progress