2010 was such an amazing rookie season follow up to Antipodes' 2009 FLL season success.  Click on the thumbnails above to link to the experiences from the individual tournaments.  (World Championships is just a placeholder until next month).

Week Before

• Make sure team T-Shirts or Sweatshirts are at coach's house, not at team members' houses.  Keep together, so one team member forgetting T-Shirt doesn't mean one team member is left out of "uniform".
• Print out 3 sets of the research presentation for the judges.
• Print out tournament info including driving directions

Day Before

• Fill up car with gas (or fully charge car Mr. Fancypants), allowing team 10 more minutes of sleep
• Charge camera batteries
• Charge cell phones
• Unload camera memory card (video consumes a lot of memory)
• Practice full matches including routine when team comes up to table
• Time practices
• Know what your backup plans are when you run out of time
• Practice Research Presentation, get someone to ask questions
• Practice Presenting programming you'd like to show Robot Design judges
• Change of tires (fine tune programming with this better traction)
• Change of batteries (fine tune programming with this faster speed)
• Plan food, make lunches
• Pack printouts of any rules, Q&A Rulings, or emails from Scott Evans you think might help for a controversial aspect of your scoring/robot design
• Pack Team Information Sheets
• Pack Team Waiver Forms
• Pack Research Project and Posters
• Pack Research Project Printouts
• Pack boxes of spare Lego parts (our totes are great for this)
• Pack Field Setup Kit and Table if you're bringing it
• Bring things to car that can be cold or withstand condensation (not laptop nor robot)
• Bring extra batteries
• Bring laptop charger, mouse, & USB cable
• Copy the robot program files onto a flash drive.
• Get driving directions near driver

Morning of Tournament

• Everyone brings their cell phones
• Bring camera and camera batteries
• Laptop and Robot to car
• Bring breakfast and eat in car
• Bring music for longer trips to tournaments

Arriving at Tournament

• Set up research project in pit area (or possibly outside, find a public place)
• Set up field for practice
• Check out match tables as soon as possible

Getting Ready for Match

• Consider new Batteries
• Inspect robot for anything out of the ordinary
• Inspect robot for things that often get loose (our small gears)
• Set up robot (we take off side of robot to make way for crash test dummy)
• Position arms
• Make sure all attachments are in tray
• Make sure your first program is selected and ready to run (in our case the light sensor calibration)

Walking up to Match Table

• Calibrate Light Sensor
• Look to see that mat is positioned correctly.  Ask refs to fix if not.
• Look to see that all field objects are positioned correctly
• Lift field objects that should be able to be lifted easily.
• Put things in/on robot that need to be inside.
• Inspect robot again.
• Have someone start stopwatch at "LEGO"