The San Diego LEGO Challange

After two months of planning, the FIRST LEGO League Competition has come and gone! We are free! Though I am happy to have the competition done with, I will miss working with my LEGO Planning Committee. They are hardworking and cool people and I'm glad I had this opportunity to get to know them in the robotics pre-seaon.

As the competition went on yesterday, several complications turned up that are worthy of noting for improvements next year. Some of the problems were out of our hands, such as unexpected judges and members not showing up which left the robotics member in attendence in a scurry to fill up job positions. Minor things we should remember for next year are: remembering to buy pens and nametags for judges & refs, opening a classroom nearer to the gym so that we won't have to run across campus if we need to print someting (I know I was all musty and dirty from running the entire day), and caution-taping off the entire school because the middle students were running about everywhere. The biggest problem though was organization. For example, some students were not clear on their jobs while several had to do many jobs at once. We also have to double-check the schedule next time. All of this could have been prevented with better organization and delegation.

Even then, I think the competition went as smoothly as anyone can hope and I am proud of the LEGO Committee. After staying after school for days on end to bring this event to life, it's an imazing feeling to see the middle school students on the LEGO teams shout with excitement when their bot does good in a match.

Being that I am a senior, this was my last year working on the competition. I hope that I have lead the LEGO Committee well enough that they have a good idea of what they have to do next year to host the 5th annual Preuss LEGO competition.

-TRANG DINH
Financial Officer, Webmaster, LEGO Competition Director