So we went to the FLL competition at Michigan State University today. It was as loud and chaotic as I remember the FIRST competitions being. It's strange, now, going to a robot competition and being a spectator. I think having been a competitor before leaves the spectator view lacking, as I've always been more fond of doing things than watching them done.

It was informative, and the kids who were competing were full of energy and excitement. I watched enough matches to see how things went, and to get a good idea of what the competition is like. Alex watched a bit, but then seemed bored. Or hungry. It was lunchtime, and I think she was more focused on wanting to eat than watching.

Afterwards, we had lunch, and then went to Bob's house. Bob was my boss in my previous job, and is into model railroading, LEGO, and Star Wars. So naturally we get along well. He's got a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, which we spent the afternoon messing with. Alex learned quite a bit about using it and programming it, and seemed much more interested.

We've played a bit in the past with Processing, which is a Java-based "simplified' programming environment. Alex picked up enough of that to get the basics, but didn't really stick with it too much. Processing supports using OpenGL for graphics, so she tried to read my OpenGL Programming Guide (The Red Book), but I think it was a bit over her head. I figured it would be, but I didn't want to discourage her, since she went and got the book on her own, and wanted to read it.

Mindstorms NXT uses a graphics programming environment based on LabView. I was really happy when she was plugging together pieces in the program and said, "Oh, it's like an IF thingy", referring to the if () {...} else {...} structure in Java. I guess some of the stuff we did in Processing stuck.

The last thing we talked about while we where there is a competition called RoboFest, which was created by Lawrence Technological University, a local technical university. One of my other co-workers at my previous job had suggested it to Bob, and we looked on the web site, and decided that the competition was more to our liking.

Hopefully we'll be entering in the upcoming season, although I suspect that it will be quite a push to be able to do so. In Robofest, the students do all the work on the robots, and the adults are there for coaching, teaching, and encouraging. That means that the kids will have to learn a lot of material in a short time, then apply it under pressure, which, depending on the personalities involved, may or may not work out well. If they're not ready to compete, and they don't want to, we'll need to remember not to push.

Anyhow, I also took the opportunity to show off the robot that we're building. There isn't much to see yet except a couple of modified servo motors, a printed drawing of the robot frame, and a few chips I ordered for future use, but it's something. Alex and I are pushing to have a working robot by the next YAAARC meeting, which is 2007-Dec-12. So we have a little over a month. My plan is to have a movable robot base next week, so we can start working on programming it, and adding sensors.

Well, this is long so I'm going to cut it off here. Next action on the robot is probably Tuesday, since that's when the base materials arrive.