Animal Allies Project

Okay!  We had a good first meeting, got to know some of the new team members, and started discussing project ideas.  But, we can't stop there.

As a reminder to everyone, we need (as a team) to come up with a condition in which the lives of animals and humans intersect, determine a problem that arises from that intersection, and come up with an imaginative solution.  We started some discussion at the last meeting, which I have summarized below:

Roadkill -- Animals interact in human developments, get hit by cars, and decay on the road.

• Chips in the animals
• Walls and cushions around the tires

Zoo -- Humans feed zoo animals food that isn’t good for them

• Glass domes
• Have proper food available

Deforestation -- Humans take land to build buildings and farms, take habitat away from animals

• Make more national parks, protected habitats

Overfishing -- Humans reduce fish stocks, fish aren't replaced.

• Designated fishing zones
• Thermal imaging satellites to detect poaching

Poop ('nuff said)

Birds fly into wind turbines

• Machine/something on turbine to scare away birds.

Hunting -- for sport

Pollution -- humans generate pollution, kill animals.

• Scrubbers for vehicles to reduce pollution

Mosquitos -- mosquitos spread various deadly diseases to humans like Zika, West Nile, Swine Flu, Malaria, etc.

• Gate that zaps or sprays bug spray
• Super repellent
• Super bug killer

Oil spills/Leaks -- destroy habitat

• Stop drilling in the ocean
• Put concrete buildings around the drills to contain the oil

Chemicals in Tar

 These are just a few ideas; I'm sure you can come up with several more, so feel free to add them to the comments and bring them to the next meeting.  Also, if you have some imaginative solution to any of these problems, let's start collecting those as well!

Welcome to (Another) New Season!

Another new year.  Another new challenge.  Another new team, sort of.  Same team number.

Welcome to another FLL season.  This is the Team NCS2 collaboration site, which I hope will be the main portal of communication for the team so they can work together between the team meetings.  The timer has been updated to reflect the date of the new qualifier tournament.

This year we have the Animal Allies Challenge.

Some important links:

http://firststatefll.org/index.php/fsfllmaininfo

http://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/fll/animal-allies-challenge-updates-and-resources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceCY2Xrnq5I

Trashformers Update -- 11/11

Some good work at the special robot meeting today.  The team worked on two missions, and managed to do some research on the team project as well.  Thanks to Ryann and Payton's mom for the cookies, and Jonas' mom for the pizza.  We'll try to complete some of these missions at the next team meeting on Friday.

 Pictures

Trashformers Team Project -- Styrofoam

By essentially a unanimous vote, the team has selected Styrofoam as the trash item for this years team project.  With this decision made, we must now move forward and actually complete the project.  Therefore, I need everyone to begin doing research, finding information, and discussing ideas.  Feel free to post information and links in the comments to this post.  The more discussion and information sharing that occurs here, the less time we will need to spend during team meetings and we can spend more time on the robot missions.

Now, with Styrofoam as the trash item, we really need to work on the following questions.

• What problem does this trash create?
• Is it recyclable?  If not, why not?  If so, why isn't it done more often?
• How big is the problem?  Looking here for how many tons/year, etc.
• Remember, we need to come up with a solution.  Are there any possible solutions already being discussed?  What can our team do to contribute?  Is there an education opportunity?  Should we make a blog?  A video? 
• Also remember, we need to share our work with others.  Who can/should we share with?  How will we share?

New Team Name -- Welcome to the Trashformers.

Congratulations on selecting a new team name.  At the last meeting, a number of possible names were presented and voted on, and the unanimous winner for the team name was the "Trashformers;"  thanks to Sam's mom for the suggestion.  I will begin updating the team documentation accordingly.