JP2 Rockslides

Since several of our team members aged-out or moved on after the 2016-17 Animal Allies season, we have decided to rename our team.  We are now the JP2 Legacy.  Evie, Matt, and AJ continue from the JP2 Rockslides on to this new team, as well as new member Bella.  Aspen, Joe and Ben will continue in FIRST on the FTC team  The Cat in the Hat comes Back.

The Fellowship of the Noodle: The Journey Begins is a fun book about teamwork, WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY US, staring a fly who wants to get a noodle up a hill.  He must work together with other insects to move the noodle and become a team!  You can buy it now on Amazon.com!

Hi! We’re the JP2 Rockslides!  There are seven members on our team this year: Aspen, Matt, Evie, Sebastian, Ben, Joe & AJ.  Sebastian & AJ are new to our team this year.  We’re excited to have them both!  Below are highlights from our many seasons. Enjoy!

 

Our team was so blessed to be able to attend the St Louis World Tournament on April 26-29, 2017 and meet so many wonderful teams.  It was a great experience!  Here are a few photos from the event.  Enjoy!

This season’s challenge is Animal Allies, studying human-animal relationships. Our team is very excited to let people know about what we are doing for our project this year.

The Zombie Fly is killing at least 4 million bees a year and we need your help!  We are helping San Francisco State University get more data on this pressing problem and are looking for both volunteer testers and donations.  To find out more, and save the bees ( and 1/3 of our food supply!) check out our GoFundMe page:  www.gofundme.com/JP2Rockslides  If you’d like to be a tester, you can also contact us through this page.  Would you like a flyer to send on, hand out or go spread the word?  We have 2!  Here’s one for beekeepers: ZomBeeFlyer.Beekeepers.pdf and one for non-beekeepers: ZomBeeFlyer.pdf .

Aside from our project, this year we had lots of meetings, went on several tours, and had lots of fun!  We competed at the Elk River Regional Tournament where we got top score in robot game, won Head-to-Head, and won the Core Values Award! We competed again in the Jan 28th Sectional Tournament and won Head-to-Head and Core Values (again).  At State, we got 4 callbacks (Research, Innovative Solution, Design, and Championship). We won 4th in Head-to-Head and 3rd overall champion! Finally, we were blessed to be able to compete at the FLL World Championship in St. Louis, MO on April 26-29th!  We scored 25th out of 107 in Robot Game and did great in our Core Values judging sessions, but more importantly we met tons of awesome teams in both FLL and FRC and learned lots.  It has been an amazing season!!

Hi, we’re the JP2 Rockslides!

 

Our team members this year include Aspen, Matt, Evie, Sebastian, Ben, Joe,  and AJ and we range in age from 9 to 14.  Sebastian and AJ just joined our team this year. We can’t wait to see all the great things they bring to the team!

We love doing outreach and getting others excited about robotics and FLL too!  We’ve talked to the different tour locations about FLL and all the great things it offers.  We’ve told new people about FLL and got them interested in joining new teams – even adding 2 new members to our team!  We met with The Diamonds and while we learned a LOT, we were able to share with them some new information too.  We also did a demo during STEM Day at the MN State Fair as well as hosted our own FLL Show-N-Tell day.  We also hosted the Just for Fun Tournament as well as mentored 4 teams: the Shredders, the JP2 Programmers, the FLL Minions, and the rookie team RuBricks Crew!  We have also volunteered at the Dec 4th and 11th tournaments.

In the 2015-2016 Trash Trek season we toured Randy’s Sanitation, WM Elk River Landfill, both Great River Energy Plants in Elk River, B&E Recycling, DemCon, By The Yard, and Liberty Paper, learning all about trash and recycling issues. Our research project solution is a special tape to help with the problem of shredded paper recycling.  Our tape is a labeled paper tape that is fully recyclable, highly visible, and keeps the shredded paper contained, all while clearly showing what’s in the bag!

We had a prototype that was tested at DemCon, and many recyclers and consumers are interested in our idea!  Tennis Recycling wanted to promote our solution to their customers, so we created a website where you can buy the tape yourself!  Check out our new website and even get some Shredded Paper Tape for yourselves: www.ShreddedPaperTape.com (all proceeds go to benefit Sherburne County 4H STEM Club).

We’re very excited to say we won the Project award for this solution at our Regional tournament, Sectional tournament and State! Not only did we win the project award, we also qualified to enter our solution into the “FLL Global Innovation Award” contest. We are also being promoted by Randy’s!  See their post here.

For more information about FIRST and each year’s challenge,  go to www.firstlegoleague.org

Hi, we’re the JP2 Rockslides!

There are six members on our team this year:

Evie, Ben, Joe, Aspen, Anthony, and Matt.

We have done lots of outreach this year.  We have taught an EV3 Programming class on STEM Day, helped teach a STEM FLL intro class, and taught some kids from the 4H club, Refuge Rangers. Some people who were at STEM Day decided to start an FLL team, and so did some people from the Refuge Rangers.  They might even start a team together!  Good luck new team(s)!

Here are some great photos from our 2014 Season.  The theme was World Class Learning where you had to solve a real world problem related to helping people learn better.  Our solution was a geography app that would help Americans learn World Geography better.  Our app was unique because it included clue-solving, adventure, all the countries, and it was exciting for a large age-range, including teenagers!  During our research, we even created our own survey that was taken by over 150 people! Our app was exciting to all that we shared our idea with.

We’d love to create a prototype of this idea, and are waiting for Youth Digital to release an upcoming class on Unity programming.

The team also learned some great new programming skills in 2014 and were able to win the robot Programming Award at the Regional Tournament in addition to doing very well in Research Project, Core Values and Robot Game, which earned us our first trip to the State Tournament!

JP2 Rockslides Regional Programming Award

Hi, we’re the JP2 Rockslides.  There are six members on our team: Anthony, Aspen, Evie, Jackson, Joe, and Matt, plus our two coaches Jenni and Shelly.

Here is our 2014 skit video from the State Tournament.

https://youtu.be/lvCkNW5yiSo

These are the highlights from the Elk River Regional Tournament for us and the JP2 Programmers.

https://youtu.be/tT9HOe4w4Jw

In 2014, we did several things for outreach:

  • We mentored a first-year team (JP2 Programmers).
  • We loaned practice tables and mats, and helped set-up the Elk River Regional Tournament.
  • We loaned and set-up practice tables and mats at the Minnesota State Tournament.
  • We promoted FLL by inviting and encouraging many people to attend  our tournaments.
  • We were the example skit at the Just For Fun Tournament (right).
  • We showed some people interested in robotics how FLL works, our robot, and skit (left).

Here are some great photos from our 2013 Rookie Season.  The theme was Nature’s Fury where you had to solve a real world problem related to natural disasters.  Our solution was a Severe Weather Warning system that would go inside your cell phone and would have it’s own rechargeable battery pack so it would still warn you even if your phone was off or your battery was dead.  This could save lives and prevent injuries from natural disasters, especially tornadoes.  We received a provisional patent on our idea.  We even won first place at regionals for Project with this idea!

We’d love to see this solution out there helping people, so if you know of anyone who might like to further develop this idea, please contact us!

Hi, we’re the JP2 Rockslides!  There are seven members on our team: Anthony, Aspen, Evie, Jackson, Joe, John & Matt, plus our two coaches: Jenni and Shelly

Here is our 2013 Research Project Skit Video from our Regional Tournament with some bonus footage from the first time we rehearsed it!

https://youtu.be/WuRer_U7-Fo

In 2013, we went to Isanti County and did a demonstration with the FTC team, The Things.  After the demonstration, Isanti County 4H decided to start their own FLL team.  We also presented for a local 4H club, The Navigators, and a homeschool group and told them about our research project.