History of the Hinkypunks: Lego League 2024 :"The Scuba Coders"

Since the older Hinkypunks all experience being on a Lego League team, I wanted to make it an option for Ephraim as well. I wasn't sure what he would think about it. He hadn't been intersted in legos for a while, but showed interest in programming.

I explained the program to 4 other families last spring,who had kids close to Ephraim's age. I thought these kids would gel well as as team, even though they didn't know each other, and came from 3 different towns. (Their common friend was Ephraim.) The parents agreed to jump into this crazy thing that they had never heard of or seen, for which I am very grateful. Brook Johnson, homeschool dad and our favorite chococolate/pottery shop ownder, had two Spike Prime Lego robots that he gave us to use. This really made it affordable, as opposed to previous years, where the older kids had to fundraise their little hearts out.

I enjoyed gettting to know the kids better. We had kids who were funny, positive, and imaginative. They enjoyed disussing different ideas for their project and sharing reasearch during our "snacktime" breaks, jumping on the trampoline, and doing activities outside the Friday team meetings. We went to the Wild Robot movie together, made ceramic fish at Brook's pottery studio together, and rode around on a boat on Lake Monoa with a sonar expert (learing about sonar for our team project).

Ephraim did a lot of work behind the scenes, such as finishing other kids programs after they left, putting togther mission models, and helping make the tri-fold display posters.

Our robot design poster showed which missions were our most and least accurate, where we learned our skills, and the programs the team coded for the robot runs.

Our Innovation Project poster explained the team's idea of shooting a bunch of small sonar mapping AUV's over the coral rings, into the middle, so they could map the ocean floor below. They would later be retrieved by a drove with a net. The poster showed the experts they emailed their ideas to, and had pictures of their time driving round with a sonar expert in Madison.

Ephraim said he liked "being able to hang out with friends, and getting to program and building with cool things." It was neat to see him messing around with the technic sets in the basement. He said he was kind of bored of regular legos, but like building with the techinc pieces. He made some interesting gear systems in his free time. Mostly, though, he liked the time with friends.

Going on a speed boat in Madison

Boating buddies!

The Wild Robot movie outing

Post movie ice-cream and discussion

Round 1 of Fish making at Brooks shop

Round 2: Glazing the fish

Dipping the fired fish in glaze

The kids and their fish

"Q and A session with the OceanXplorer" party!

The tournament day was the toughest part. It is long and loud. Rock music for 8 hours, echoing around in a gymn filled with hundreds of kids. Luckily, the tournament director at Marqutte H.S. (in Milwaukee) decided to offer a "quiet room" for kids who were overstimulated by all the noise and needed a quiet place to reset. We spent time there between each of our robot runs.

The "Quiet Room" - a brilliant idea!

Tournament game face!

Waiting to compete at the robot table

This experience also wouldn't have been possible without Sean being willing to sign on as my assistant coach. (Lego requires 2 coaches with background checks). Even though his new job often kept him busy during our regular meeting time, he was invaluable in the background. (Sorting lego sets, teaching me how to upload/download prgrams, and hauling all the stuff around to the scrimmage and tournement.) Thanks, coach Sean!

Keeping it light, at the scrimmage

Sean and Brook, hosting a mock judging session

Sean, setting up our table and keeping props tidy.

End of season piece sorting

Rescuing lego pieces from all corners of the basement, post-season.

The kids did really well with their presentation. They tackled the problem of how to use sonar to map the inside of coral attols. They remembered their lines, and had a lot of fun doing their skit.

Lining up outside the judging room 8:20 AM

Getting ready for judging, props on!

Our squid!

Ephraim's robot run on the table got the highest score of the three team attempt, 170. We didn't win awards, but were nomiated for the Rising Star and Motivation awards. I was really proud of the kids. They preformed at their best.

Getting ready for Round 1

Explore walk to the Shriners building on break

Camels in Milwaukee WI

Getting ready for the final round!

It was definately a season of learing for all involved. It was a lot of work, but worth it. It wasn't just about learning the skills of coding and engineering, but also forging memories with friends that I hope will last long term. We had a fun end of season potluck at Ashia's house. It was great to see not only the kids on the team playing together, but also their younger siblings and parents getting to know each other.