November 3, 2009 - S.N.O.T. Building

There was a lot of curiosity and excitement about the building challenge for this meeting: S.N.O.T. building!! S.N.O.T. stands for "Studs Not On Top." Some Builders had some difficulty getting started--it's hard to break old habits! A few of them tried to stay in the gray by building everything upside-down (technically the studs were NOT on top...until I turned the project upside-down). Once they got rolling, we had a lot of great examples of S.N.O.T. building.

October 20, 2009

Building the Science and Engineering dog

• Part of the Building group began work on the Lego Science and Engineering dog, which will wag its tail and move its mouth when completed.

Building chairs

• Some of the Builders decided to take the challenge of designing chairs for a small stuffed animal. The chairs had to pass the drop test and fit the animal the Builder chose.

That's a lot of animals!

Finalizing the robot

• The Robot Building group continued work on their robot and tested various programs to get the robot to accomplish their objective. When they were done, they demonstrated their invention: The Candy-Flinging Robot!

October 6, 2009

Builders split into small groups and worked on models from the Lego Science and Engineering kit, with a focus on gears and stable structures.


The Robot Building group (Carson, Mason, Evan A., and Koy), revised plans for their robot, built a base for the motor and NXT brick, and devised a simple program to test the function of their design. After drafting a design and building a prototype, we realized that the objective was too complex to be built in the time frame we had available. Although they were disappointed that they had to start over, they quickly came up with a revised plan and built a base for the motor.