This blog is no longer monitored.

Check out our facebook page for newest info on the code crackers!  This page served as a journal and memory reflection for a new FLL coach. So for prosperity/core value ideas  it will stay up.

Coach Vicky switched platforms to best meet needs of current season students. Tweet @pixels for questions.

Our 2018 students created an info page here: https://codecrackersrobotics.weebly.com/

Our 2020 students created this:  http://trapnozap.weebly.com

Pizza and Programming

We spend the early afternoon at a programming party today. Both teams worked very hard perfecting and building their runs. Our mentor, Coach Jamie, came down to lend a hand. The Mazzie family built the second board and planned the whole day for us. The kids enjoyed pizza and programming.
The girls perfected their runs, and the boys have three almost four missions completed. It's a good start. Time is quickly ticking away until our first event.

Afterwards some of the team headed to a corn maze. $30 dollars, and 7 minutes later they found their way out. What do you expect when you ask a few code crackers to solve a puzzle.. Regardless, we are always proud of our team. Great job kids.


We'll forge ahead on Wednesday!!

Borough Approval for Project

The Conyngham Borough Council unanimously voted for our project to be approved! They are very excited and impressed with the kiddos plan "Mystery at the Watershed". 

Earlier in the week we submitted a proposal. The council members had a copy to review at their closed session. We attend the board meeting and they seemed very excited about our project. They have been nothing but supportive and helpful to our team. We are so very thankful for their support.

We will be very busy the next few weeks pulling everything together. Can't wait to share more with you!

2017 Parody Video Entries

Learning from the experts!

Last night our team learned more about the human water cycle and the impact we have on the Susquehanna watershed! Did you know our community can impact the quality of our local streams with construction, agriculture, and even leaving grass clippings on sidewalks or roadways? 

A big thank you to the friends of the nescopeck and pennsylvania steward, Mr Leander, for taking the time to research our project and sharing his knowledge with us!

I know it was a late night for you kiddos. Thank you for listening, absorbing new information, and being respectful. There is always room to grow and hopefully you can now choose the 5 areas of awareness we need to develop our interactive scavenger hunt around.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend and can get some rest!

Music Videos and Robot Design

Last Night the kiddos worked on their parodies, robot design and discussed projects. This weekend the boy team will continue recording their video(5pm at Kozlek home), and on Sunday there will be a Lego build party. More information to follow. It will most likely start 11:30 am and be in (church, or borough building). As soon as we know the details, we will post more info. The build party is to help build the second mat’s mission pieces. 

Students should have access to a cell phone device for direction pieces or preload pdf files to a tablet device from Fll website: http://www.firstlegoleague.org/missionmodelbuildinginstruct… (we usually don’t print files as they are 30+ pages for each mission, and easier to see in color on a device).

Gummy Bears and Godzilla

We had another fun night at robotics! After visiting a rain garden, the ladybots voted and came up with a game plan for their project! 🐠💦. The girls also started thinking of robot design!

The Brobots decided on the parody songs, started programming their first mission, and will begin work on their project next week.

During our core values game: We all learned that when it comes to war, our children are ruthless. No fear of Godzilla attacking the library. 

See you next week! 

Agenda: Ladybots start designing project, work on song

Brobots, one team work on solving mission, second team design blueprints for app, third team storyboard music video and choreography. 

See you next Wednesday! Beware random trails of gummy bears.

Project Ideas and Robot Design

Thank you everyone for coming out to robotics last night! 

The ladybots are off to a great start under the direction of Coach Alison and Coach Casey! They hashed out some lyrics for their parody, discussed ideas for their project and explored the game board.

The boys also examined the new challenges for this year including upgrades to their robot. They have a mash up idea brewing for their parody, but are still on the fence for project ideas. We'll explore that more next week after we program our first mission.

The team challenge/core values activity this week was pictionary! It was cool to see our budding artists and interpretative work.


Looking forward to next week! Stay Sharp Bots 

New Season for the Code Crackers

At tonight's first meeting, the ladybots versed the brobots in a puzzling game of wits and speed. The ladies were a bit quicker, but the boys were first to negotiate a trade deal. Everyone was a winner in the end with coach Alison's outstanding Lego robotic cupcakes!!! 🤖🎂

Students also learned a bit more about FLL and this year's hydrodynamics challenge. All challenge resources can be found here: https://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/fll/hydro-dynamics-challenge-updates-and-resources(coaches handbook, videos, rules etc)

Next Wednesday girls will start off first at six, and boys will come at seven. Robot Design and Mission Planning will be on the agenda.

Have a wonderful week!

Review of the regional FLL Championship Event

On Saturday, January 21st our team had the opportunity to compete in the First Lego League Championship at Penn State Berks. The morning of the event,  I received panic calls from some of our parents. Sadly three of our  kids were suffering from the flu and could not make it. That put our team down to a small group of four. Heart broken for the kids who wanted to attend, but just couldn't get through a long grueling day of robotics, we pushed forward.

Penn State Berks did an amazing job of hosting this event. Our kiddos arrived  and quickly set up their poster in the pit area. The kids designed bee pins with the warning of not cutting down wild flowers to early in your lawn to hand out as flair. Coach Sue was a huge help in getting this task done with the kids.

The students were judged in robot design, project presentation, core values and of course the robot game. There was one robot game practice round on the stage before the main event.

The hardest challenge for us, was reassigning parts or roles for the missing three members. During the project presentation, our kids had to take on duel speaking parts and work to make up for the missing members. All season long, the kids had been practicing a play about wild mason bees. They had worked so hard to memorize lines etc, but when it came down to it, we just had to go with the flow. I am so proud of how they quickly adapted and did their best to do their teammates other parts.  They did a great job under the pressure, especially for a group of 11 year old boys.


The robot game was just not in the stars for us this weekend. The kids had been practicing specific runs with various teammates, but that got changed last minute. Regardless, as a coach, I feel that allowing each member to get out on the board and attempt the runs is crucial. I could have had one member do all the runs, and hope for the best score.. but that's really not what FLL is all about. I believe the all the kids built confidence and had the opportunity to feel the heat of competition.  It is always so great to see how they handle situations and for this young team, it was a huge learning experience.  This also teaches them so much about design and programming, and how it effects the robot's automated runs.


The kiddos shined in their core values activity and did a great job working together. Despite being down a few key members, the rest of the team pulled together and worked so well as a team. In fact they came home with a team work award! I can't tell the joy I felt when I saw their faces light up when their names were called.

     (Go Penn State)




I am so proud of all their hard work this season.  I will share more pictures of this event soon.
 The kids will be sharing their project with the community at the school district's science fair. 




-Stay Healthy, have fun, and keep on challenging yourself!


The CCC

PA Farm Show, Bee Research

. This year, some of our team members had the opportunity to visit the  2017 PA farm show. While there we bee-lined over to meet with the Pennsylvania State Bee Keeper organization. 

They did an hour long presentation on helping and aiding the honey bee. After the presentation we were able to ask them some of the  questions we still had our bees and help aid us in our project! The room smelled of fresh honey, and we even got to taste a sample. They do an amazing job of taking care of their hives and educating society on the importance of bees. 

We also had the chance to meet with Penn State Master Gardner, William Brennan who shared information on the dark side of pesticide use.

We ended our trip with some fresh honey waffles and honey ice cream. Researching bees is a sweet experience indeed.

Hope the rest of our team members feel better and recover soon!

Merry Christmas Conyngham!

The code crackers had a blast representing FLL in the town's Christmas parade.

Thank you for letting us join in and sharing in the fun.

Are We Dreaming?

We recently won a lifetime opportunity to represent our area (and country) at at the First Lego League International Open Championship in Bath, England!

We are very excited to receive this chance of a lifetime opportunity and anticipate our trip will cost about $15,000, which includes our team's tournament registration, airfare and ground transportation, hotel lodging, meals, event insurance, and additional competition expenses.

We are super excited to now be representing our area and competing on an international level!  Can you please help us make our dream trip a reality?  Our local team is so honored to be representing such a great community and country.

 https://www.gofundme.com/fll-championship-team-ccc

 The FLL Open Championship event aims to:

■ Inspire young people and the general public to engage with STEM subjects and activities.
■ Encourage international collaboration and networking.
■ Promote awareness of engineering and encourage more young people to consider careers in STEM.
■ Provide teams from around the world with the opportunity to have fun, engage in a challenging competition and develop a range of key life skills

Your Donation Means the World to Us:

We are trying to bring STEM activities to our area. Your donation to our club would help us offer other events for the community. We would love to offer robotic and engineering workshops for other children. As the program and interest grows in the area, we want to help offer this opportunity to every child that wants to learn how to program! We are a very small community group. Without your help we will not be able to participate in the championship or continue to build this program in our area. We recently created two robotics groups out the Hazleton Area because the interest in FLL is growing. Next year we hope to start incorporating more students who are ready to learn and participate in robotics.

Thank you for your support in robotics and for us kids, who dream big,

The Conyngham Code Crackers: Jacob, Noah, Nick, Sammy, Ethan, Billy, and Sophie

Getting Closer!

http://nmfll.org/…/STOW-or-GO_Updated_Building_Instructions…

At last night's meeting, we discussed all the amazing things you witnessed at the tune up event! Great job kids. I am linking to a PDF, to creating a foam travel board. What a great idea!
Our goals the next few weeks will be to memorize our scripts! Work on a brand new run (milk, dog trainer, seal)... and possible food mission.

 We will also practice robot design and programming answers.

Christmas Parade is on the 10th! 🤖

The Tune Up Event

Coach Vicky had to be away for the FLL Tune Up event this year, as she was participating in her best friend's wedding.  However the  Conyngham Code Crackers did an amazing job! What a great event, and good way to warm up for the Reading Penn State Event this January.

Thanks to Uncle Jamie, Coach Keith, Coach Sue, and everyone else who helped the kiddos succeed.  

God Save the Bees!

One of the best things about FLL, is that it asks you help out the community in a special way with the project portion. This year Animal Allies asked us to pick an animal, and identify a problem we could solve with the way humans interact with the animal. As a group we decided to research the mason bee, after a few weeks of studying other animals.

Once we picked the bee, we knew we needed to come up with a solution to help aid them in our own community. We know that our families and neighbors care about their gardens, and keep well manicured lawns. The problem is that we often kill the food supply and homes of the mason bee! So we decided to build special Bee Sanctuaries to help aid our friends.  We also developed special seed bombs.

With aid from Coach Sue, she taught us how to mold and create seed bombs. Our seed bombs are pretty special. They are especially designed to help our local mason bee.  They use special manure,  clay, and seeds for our friends. Ethan specially molded and help with this project.

 

Mr. Mazzie, helped us with our Bee Houses. Noah came up a bee house design, and logo for on top. We each took turns drilling all the holes in the houses.  His lawn sign is spot on!

Finally we have been working on our presentation. Mrs. Mazzie helped us come up with our beautiful costumes. Isn't Sophie just the sweetest flower? Jake will get to play this role too. We think Pink is also his color!

 
 We created some other props, with the help of Coach Sue.  We think Nick makes the perfect little mason bee, and Sammy and Billy are strong narrators. We can't wait to share with you our skit.

We Fixed it!

In FLL there is always room for redesign! We saw that our robot needed that when she wasn't easily going over some of the game board. The problem was that the ball socket was getting hooked on the gate piece, as Myrtle plowed over it. So we took our design back to the drawing board.
 
We created a special back end design for Myrtle and it seems to allow her to easily travel over the gate.  We talked with mentor from Penn FLL, who gave us the idea that we needed to support the ball socket with braces.  (Thanks so much coach Jim!)

Jake, Sophie, and Sammy came up with a quick design. Sure enough it was all we needed.   In the future, we might come up with a smoother design that incorporates other wheels. We just are running on limited lego parts and supplies.   All in good time.  For now, we are happy to improvise with what we got.

We love it when a plan comes together!

"Loyals"

The Conyngham Code Crackers, Team #23551

Style of Lorde "Royals"

"Loyal"
I never seen a robot in distress
We couldn’t fix or adjust with coding
While I’m proud of our success
In a meet, there’s no show boating

But every robot has Legos, axles, motors, a line read, sensors, gyros, multiple USBs.

We do care, we love programming in our dreams.

But every meets like, core values, team work, fixing our last run, 2 minutes, project, having too much fun.. We do care.. We love  hard and software

And we’ll always be loyal, loyal… FLL is in  our blood
This kind of game is just for us
We crave a motors humming buzz..
FLL is just cooler (cooler)
You can join our team
And we can rule in
First Lego League

My friends and I we cracked the code
We count our Legos on the board and party
And everyone who knows us knows
We’re engineers and our robot’s hardy

But every robot has Legos, axles, motors, a line read, sensors, gyros, multiple USBs.

We do care, we love programming in our dreams.

But every meets like, core values, team work, fixing our last run, 2 minutes, project, having too much fun.. We do care.. We love  hard and soft ware

And we’ll always be loyal, loyal… FLL is in  our blood
This kind of game is just for us
We crave a motors humming buzz..
FLL is just cooler (cooler)
You can join our team
And we can rule in
First Lego League

All Our Friends Can Program, Can't you tell?

The Conyngham Code Crackers, FLL Team, parody of Twenty One Pilots' song "Heathens".

All my friends can program can’t you tell?
Coding our robot to stop and go!
Please don’t code any broken loops..
Our robot can’t handle the abuse

All my friends can program can’t you tell?
Coding our robot to stop and go!
Please don’t code any broken loops..
Our robot can’t handle the abuse

Welcome to first Lego league-who-have-rooms-of-kids-that-could-code one day
Program away
Just because we left the Legos on the floor doesn’t mean our bot will fail, our build’s not frail

You’re learning how to build, something new
You’re learning how to solve, something cool
You’ll work as a team to form a crew
But after all we’ve said, please don’t forget!

All my friends can program can’t you tell?
Coding our robot to stop and go!
Please don’t code any broken loops..
Our robot can’t handle the abuse

We deal with core-values very well
With teamwork, we always excel

You’re loving the coder, sitting next to you
You’ll have some coaches, helping you
You’ll have some parents cheering you
But after all we’ve said, please don't forget
————
All my friends can program can’t you tell?
Coding our robot to stop and go!
Please don’t code any broken loops..
Our robot can’t handle the abuse

All my friends can program can’t you tell?
(Code it)
Coding our robot to stop and go!
(Code it)
All my friends can program can’t you tell
(Code it)
Coding our robot to stop and go.

Glad you came, we knew you should have stayed
We tried to warn you Legos should be played
And now our team should discuss
It looks like you might code with us

First Video Competition!

The Conyngham Code Crackers decided to enter this year's first video competition!

The kids voted on a few songs, and decided to change the words to "Heathens" by twenty one pilots, and "Royals" by Lorde.

The past two weeks,  we took some time to record our music videos!  We worked together to record, use a green screen, and just have some fun with legos! We can't wait to show you what we have created.