Teeny Plastic Robots

I guess I don't mention it often, but FIRST robotics actually has an official "minor league system" called FIRST Lego League.  As its name suggests it involves making the actual robots out of legos and outfitting them with little motors and such.  The clever part is in the programming and sensors which actually are just smaller versions of what we use in FIRST.  Oh, and FLL is all autonomous, push the button and away you go little robot.

It lacks the kinetic mayhem of our old combat robot classes, and is clearly on a smaller scale than the FIRST stuff we are doing at the high school level.  But it is a fun age group to work with, mostly upper elementary school, and once in a while they do call me up to help.

Part of being an official at one of these things is the expectation you wear a silly hat.  Opportunities to do so should always be taken.  I think the leopard pattern fez goes with the striped Ref shirt and the unique Machines Behaving Badly mask rather nicely.