June challenge results

June's challenge day was really interesting. First, Eden and Luke seemed to realize how big the time bonus is which started a day-of-the-challenge arms race to speed things up. They learned about how things can change (usually for the worse!) when you simply crank up the power on a robot or swap out the wheels for bigger ones. In the end it was a fun day, though, with lots of running back-and-forth between the game table and their work areas. 

Ping Pong Morning Results:
Luke: 40
Eden: 38

Ping Pong Afternoon Results:
Luke: 40
Eden:38
Saerichai: 30

In the morning runs, Eden both discovered and solved a problem that can happen when you speed up the robot dramatically, all during and between his "official" challenge runs! Luke and Eden were separated by only 1 second in the afternoon - it was a nail biter!

Treasure Hunt Morning Results:
Eden: 30
Luke: 28

Treasure Hunt Afternoon Results:
Luke: 30
Eden: 28

In the morning runs, Eden beat Luke by 3 seconds, and in the afternoon, Luke was faster by only 1 second again! Maybe we need a more precise timing system - these kids are putting my fingers to the test for sure.

We didn't have any participants for Find the Pass this month. The kids have been working on three challenges with very different requirements. It's difficult to produce a single robot to work on them all, so several kids have chosen to specialize and FTP is the challenge they tended to drop. I'm a little sad about that, because FTP has some really interesting problems to solve. I understand though, because solving them requires lots of really repetitive fine tuning or big new thoughts and difficult programming. Maybe next month I'll make it worth lots of points to see if I can get them to work on that.