Internet safety

I've been invited to participate in a Perkins Grant to write middle school curriculum re: Internet Safety and Security. This project is being coordinated by the Information Technology department at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College. I met with 8 other metro teachers all whom will bring excellent insights and experiences to the project. If any of my MILI grant companions have recommendations for possible resources that would inspire me, please share.

The Washburn Millerbots are in the news...

The Washburn Robotics team had a great weekend at the Minnesota Northstar Regional Competition. We're even featured in a news article that will appear in the University of Minnesota's Minnesota Daily newspaper. Enjoy!!

Millerbots in Wisconsin March 12-14, 2009

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Blogging on a Bus

Technology is unbelievable when you can be traveling down the highway on a bus that has wifi so that you can stay connected with the world.  The connection speed is faster than dial up and isn't costing me a penny.  Wow.

As for the reason for the trip the Washburn Millerbots are finally off to the Wisconsin Regional Robotics Competition in Milwaukee, WI.  I'm riding on a bus with robotics team members from Edina High School, Patrick Henry High School, and Washburn.  Lots of ipods, Nintendo DS, and laptops in use as we travel.

Well, supper break has arrived early.... gotta go.

The Robots are...."twittering."

Thought you'd all like to know that the US FIRST FRC competitions have added a "twittering" component to the live streaming video of the competitions.  Its fun to see the comments scrolling along side the "live" matches.  Our team is also excited to see some matches being played, and scout other team strategies prior to our first competition in the middle of March.

If you're interested you can see video links of the Manchester, NH March 26-28th competition.

Enjoy!

This looks cool...a new feature from Google Labs.  Multiple inboxes at gmail AND the ability to send message from gmail that look like they originated from a different email account. this would definitely solve the dilemma for me of logging in and out of 4+ email accounts a day. I think I'll try it and let you know what I think after a few days/weeks.

Almost done...(or not!)

The "build" season for US FIRST's "First Robotics Challenge" is almost done. The Millerbots of Washburn High School will crate their robot on Tuesday and ship it off to their first competition. It's been a fun-filled, sometimes exasperating, adrenalin-rich, exhausting 6 weeks. There have been many 15 hour days when you consider arriving at school around 6;30am to prep for classes, attend meetings, and then end the day with robotics from 3:15 til 8, sometimes 9:00pm.

The good news is that we have accomplished the 3 main objectives of this year's build season. Design and build a 120 lb., 5 foot tall robot that drives, has an uptake conveyor system, and includes a hopper delivery system for scoring points. We plan to ship our robot on Tuesday without its "brain" so that we can continue to tweek our programming.