RoboFesta Milton Keynes

Finals of the competition were held on Thursday 11 July 2002 at the Open University, Kents Hill campus (opposite Walton Hall campus).
A results service for RoboFesta-UK challenges (including the RoboFEsta-MK event) has been established at http://robots.open.ac.uk

Working under the auspices of RoboFesta Milton Keynes, members of the Open University (http://robofesta.open.ac.uk), Countec and the SETPOINT for Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire (http://www.mobstem.org.uk/) have just run two robot competitions for several local schools.

The competitions were based on the following RoboCup Junior events (a background document on RoboCup Junior is available in MS Word or pdf format):

• Robot football (one-on-one). See the rules here...
• Robot dance. See the rules here...

The finals of the competition were held on Thursday 11 July 2002 at the Kents Hill campus (opposite the Open University campus at Walton Hall).

The following Milton Keynes schools were involved in the competition:

• Denbigh School
• Lord Grey School
• Shenley Brook End School
• St Paul's School
• Walton High School
• Stantonbury Campus School

There are several excellent resources that can be used by entrants in the RoboCup Junior competitions:

• RoboCup Junior - South Australia: http://www.tsof.edu.au/curriculum/lego_web/Resources/resources.htm Provides a useful guide to getting started with the RoboLab software.
• RoboCup Junior Australia website: http://www.robocupjunior.org.au If you sign up for their mailing list, you can get hold of sample build and RoboLab programming instructions for a RoboCup Junior football player.

We also provided some hints sheets to support the robot football competition:

• General hints on Robolab programming (download as an MS Word or a pdf document).
• General hints on programming RoboCup Junior robot football players (download as an MS Word or a pdf document).

• Lego Dacta Robolab Homepage
• Lego Dacta Robolab Inventor Glossary
• Robalab Homepage at Tufts University
• Robalab Tutorial at Tufts University

• Electronic conference for RoboFesta-MK Team coaches (password required)
• First Lego League Resources: http://www.firstlegoleague.org/ Follow the links for 'United Kingdom' and then 'Team Resources' to find resource packs containing useful information about coaching teams competing in Lego robotics challenges and activities to get teams started.
• Using RoboLab in Primary Schools (Kent NGfL): http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/robolab/ A useful site showing how RoboLab has been integrated into primary school activities.
• Robotics Education Project (excellent US-based resource): http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov
• Lego Engineering Curriculum Ideas (LDAPS); this site includes a useful tutorial on gear maths: http://ldaps.arc.nasa.gov/Curriculum
• Virtual GRASP an online project-based curriculum for US middle school students (http://www.grasp.upenn.edu/vgrasp/vtour/) There's a particularly nice challenge described here relating to a wall following robot.
• See also the RoboFesta-UK useful links page

Official Lego Websites

• Lego Mindstorms: http://www.legomindstorms.com
• Robolab: http://www.lego.com/dacta/robolab

Useful Organisations

• Association for ICT in Education (ACITT): http://www.g2fl.greenwich.gov.uk/acitt/
• British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA): http://www.becta.org.uk/technology/
• Design and Technology Association (DATA): http://www.data.org.uk
• Technology Enhancement Programme (TEP): http://www.tep.org.uk
• Women into Science and Engineering (WISE): http://www.engc.org.uk/ingenium/1

This RoboFesta Milton Keynes event was brought to you by:

• The Open University's Edutainment and Robotics Education Research Group (http://robofesta.open.ac.uk)
• Countec, the Milton Keynes Education Business Partnership (http://www.countec.org )
• Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire SETPOINT (http://www.mobstem.org.uk)