Team Equilibrium

As the countdown to Saturday has begun, I thought I should share some of the posts from the teams blog in case you have not been able to follow yourself....

The purpose of FLL is that kids will learn about environmental or community issues and use the Lego competition as a way to have a bit of fun while expanding their brains.When it comes to the robotics we learn a lot about mechanics and design. We learnt a lot this year about what doesn't work - it's like Tomas Edison who found 99 ways not to make a light bulb before he found the way to do it! Well we learnt many ways that our robot would not work until Tuesday night when we rebuilt it and now have a super robot that is breezing through the challenges.But with the project we had to find a problem related to transport in our community. We then had to find a solution to this problem. For the last 6 weeks we have been working on the solution. We identified the problem quite quickly for our age group - cycling in the road. We sent out a questionnaire to 200 parents and got 68 replies. only 1 person said they felt that the Cape Town roads were safe enough for their child (aged 14) to ride on. The rest said that because of cars and threats of robbery they wouldn't allow their children to ride on the road.Our solution is a "grass roots" solution, as my mom says. It is easy affordable and do-able for each parent. We don't have to rely on the City of Cape Town to make cycle lanes - although many lives could already have been saved if there were cycle lanes. (BTW plans for lanes are in the pipeline).We are just waiting for our "model" and then we will reveal our solution - so watch this space! We got the "little brothers" to make us a Lego city.

Lego city by the little brothers for the display table.

Here's the promised solution for kids who are reliant on bike transport or just want to get from A - Z on their bikes...to visit a friend, to get some exercise or to get to sport.We all know that the roads aren't a safe place for cyclists. In 2009 we personally know of two men who were killed in car-bike related accidents. Both of these men leave behind wives and young children.Of course parents are concerned about letting their kids bike around the suburbs. Besides cars being a hazard, we also know that South Africa isn't the safest place to live and even in our neighbourhood we hear of incidents where school kids are robbed of their cell phones.So our S.O.K Pack (SAVE OUR KIDS) is a grass roots solution for older children who are reliant in bikes to get around.

Included in the pack is:

~A cool camo reflective jacket (Cape Storm donated the fabric and Freeline printing did the printing, we designed and sewed it)

~A can of pepper spray

~A lego movie DVD

~Bike stickers

~Bike helmet

~2 flashing bike lights

Take a look at how it looks....

One of the team members kitted out in the S.O.K. Pack.

I am so proud of the way these kids have put the minds to the challenge set before them and have been determined to overcome all the obstacles they have faced. Today was another long day for them. J was gone at 08h30 and only home at 22h30! A tired but happy kid!