We won !!! - Outstanding Robot Design

Congratulations Global Coolers !!!

We won the "Outstanding Robot Design" Award at the FLL Colorado State Championships!!!

And here are some pictures and videos... more to come later...

Resuming activities...

Hope everyone had a fun and relaxing Thanksgiving vacation. We resumed our meetings and today we had a nice video conference with "The 4 Penguineers" team from California. They showed us their presentation on "The SOD Trees" and we shared our "Pine Beetles in the Rocky Mountain" presentation.

Here is a fun video that I took at the meeting...

See you next Friday!

We Won !!!

Congratulations to the High Peaks Global Coolers Team!

We won two awards at the Monach Tournament today:

• 1st Place Robot Performace - with the highest score of 170
• Excellent Project Research - for the great presentation and research of the effect of Pine Beetles in Global Climate changes.

Now, the challenge continues at the State Competition on December 13th.

Congrats!!!

You can see all the pictures at the Mac Gallery or Google Picasa... and the movies will come later...

Greetings from China

Hi Global Coolers, here are some pictures from Xi'an, which was the capital of China for 13 dynasties, including the most powerful Tang dynasty (618-907 AD): replica of an old Chinese castle, a Chinese Lion, and a Buddhist guardian God to keep the team's spirits up and to wish you best luck at the tournament on Saturday!

Project presentation

Hi all, here are the current versions of the research project presentation and the LEGO movies

Hi everyone!

Wishing you a happy Halloween... enjoy the time off from our Lego meetings, go and do some trick-or-treating and we'll resume the meetings on Saturday, to get closure on the project and the missions...

Happy Halloween !!!

Looking for other FLL teams

Global Coolers are looking for FLL teams outside Colorado with projects related to effects of climate changes on forests, pine beetle epidemics, or similar topics. Please post your comment here if you are interested in communicating with us.

Dragon, can I get a copy of our lego video before we take it apart into smaller pieces

--

Brad w

Cutting Infested Trees

I think we should peel back some bark and if it is infested with pine beetles then you cut down those trees. You can also kill the larva with chemicals.

Solutions Combined

For our project we can combine all of our solutions into our thing. I think it's a good idea because you can make biofuel and furniture to collect money to pay for water or microrganisms. My idea for the project is a lego movie that explains all the solutions and the problem. That makes it so the judges will think we have a great project.

Pine beetle 101

P.B.S. (pine beetle solution) is a liquid that boosts the defense system of a tree. P.B.S. was made by Good Earth R.O.S.E. Care.
Healthy trees have a microorganism that makes a tree uninhabitable for a beetles larvae . P.B.S. has those microorganisms in it that are made in a lab. when a mountain pine beetle senses these microorganisms they go some where else. we can add P.B.S. to the soil of weak trees so they grow stronger.
I think that we should get schools to do fundraisers so the government can afford to spray the trees with P.B.S.

Solution

I have a solution to the Moutain Pine Beetles (MPB), I think we should pour a lot of cold water so that the MPBwould not be able to inject the fungus in the tree or if the tree already has the fungus then we could put in the cold water so that the MPB wouldn't develop more MPB and the tree would have some water.

The Solution For All The Pine Beetles!

Today I was reaserching and found this site that had alot of information on how to repel mountain pine beetles!

These bullet points are from the article.

• solar treatment kills M.P.B.
• droughts are the reason that all the M.P.B. are destroying all the pines(because they get weaker)
• people are thinking of putting plastic shields around them so the sun reflects on
  

      the plastic thus causing it to "overheat" under all the plastic and burn the M.P.B. still                   hibernating

• M.P.B. only attack weak ponderosa pine and lodgepole pine
  

Pine beetles solution

THEY FINNALY FOUND A SOLUTION!!!
http://www.organicrosecare.org/articles/worm_bark_beetle.php

snack

Dragon can we get a snack schedule soon?
--
Brad

Dead Trees For Biofuel

I found out that you can use the pine beetles to work for you and that you use the dead trees they produce to make biofuels. My dad does support this idea, but my teammates do not.

Interesting website about pine beetles

I just found another article. Please follow this link:

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05528.html

Leon

Pine beetles web

I found a great website with lots of info:http://www.getboulder.com/visitors/articles_w07/pinebeetles.html

Pine beetles 101

Here are some predators of the Pine beetle
-the almighty Nematodes prevent larva growth
-the Woodpeckers eat the beetles larva
-both types of checkered beetles eat adults


Arash

Note about links

Regarding my last posting with different web sites to check information about the pine beetle, when you access the City of Boulder Wildlife Open Space and Mountain Parks web site, please click on the link "Mountain Pine Beetle", which takes you to three different documents. 

Pine beetles 101

Here are some stuff on Pine Beetle
-pine beetles double each year
-some trees produce Resin to pitch out Pine Beetles
-during a drought trees produce less Resin
-trees turn blue when a beetle gets in
-woodpeckers and checkered beetles feed on pine beetles
-people can't stop the pine beetle epidemic

Information about the Pine beetle

The following web sites contain information about the Pine Beetle. 

The first link is an article that recently came out in the local news:  

pine beetle in the local news

The next is from a City of Boulder Web Site:

facts about the pine beetle

pine beetle reseach

here are some things I learned on pine beetles

-if you cut open a pine beetle attack tree you would see blue rings and tunnels.
-the most common trees to get attacked are ones that are not growing quickly and droght or fire.
-after a pine beetle attack there are many younger trees that are well spaced.
-to protect a tree from beetles you can spray it or you can spray the beetles.
-once MBP infests a tree there is nothing worth doing that would work well.

--
Brad

Pine Beetles Infestation In Colorado!

The pine beetles are the most important insect pest in Colorado.The pine beetles prefer the really weak trees so better keep your trees healthy if you want them to live.The global warming is attracting the pine beetles to Colorado.The pine beetles are the source of all the red and orange trees.

Global Coolers Team Project: Pine Beetles Infestation of Colorado Forests

The team will research how pine beetles are destroying Colorado forests and how the spread and intensity of the infestation are related to climate changes. The team will them create an innovative solution to this problem, share the research and the solution, and present the project at the FLL competition. Comment on this post to describe your personal experiences, observations, materials and resources related to the project, and ideas about experts the team could talk to.

Team meetings: Sept. 26 & 27

Global Coolers met in the library on Friday and at CU on Saturday. Both locations worked well. The team made progress finalizing the robot platform (based on spinner), building the robots and attachments and starting work on missions. On Saturday, we discussed two project ideas: (1) pine beetle infestation in Colorado forests, and (2) drought and shrinking water supply in Colorado. Both problems are likely related to climate changes. Jeremy presented to the team his science project from last year, showing increasing temperature trends in Boulder. The team unanimously voted to work on the pine beetle infestation problem.

University of Colorado meeting place

Google map: 1120 Engineering dr, Boulder, CO, 80309

Examples of 2007 robot designs and missions

Peak Energy at the regional qualifier
FLL World Festival 1st Place Design
"Spaarlampjes" FLL Power Puzzle perfect 400 score
FLL Power Puzzle Perfect 400 in 90 seconds
Power Puzzle First Lego League 400 point run
Ginnie & Mack 400 point run in 2:20

Global Coolers Team Documents

Meeting sign-up schedule
Robot selection matrix

First Post

This is the blog site for the "Global Coolers" team from High Peaks Elementary for the 2008 First Lego League competition.