April 28th- Thursday Competition Day 1
SAS Pudong has had a full two days in St. Louis. We arrived late Monday night after being delayed in Chicago due to Storms. After checking in all the team fell into bed. We had a slow easy morning on Tuesday meeting for breakfast in the Westin Hotel. Following our breakfast meeting we decided to do a bit of touring and walked down to the St. Louis Arch, about a 15 minute walk. Four of our group braved the trip up the Arch. Following we walked up to the Museum and then returned back to the hotel in the early afternoon for some team planing time. We all were/are suffering from jet lag. Mr David, Mr and Mrs Boyer, Kevin and Owen braved the evening and went out to eat at a local barbecue place. The line was long, but it was worth the wait. Alex and Will had crashed and fallen asleep we brought food back for them.
Wednesday was a very full day. We were up and breakfasted by 8:30 and headed down to the tourney area. We were early in which was a good thing in that we were not rushed in setting up our booth. We met teams for around the world. We had an especially good time meeting with one of the teams from Lebanon. After setting up our booth, the team took turns walking through the pit area. We had the great fortune of meeting up with the Martins, past SAS students/parents who are down from Michigan with and FTC and FRC teams. It was great meeting up with them and discussing the tournament process. Following a coaches meeting the team headed back to the hotel where we took a 2 hour power nap then got back up to work on presentations and planning for Thursday’s competition.
Today, Thursday, we are headed down to the tournament site early. We have an 8 am practice time then begin our judging times at 9:40 am. This begins a full hour of presentations. There is a break for lunch then the team has 3 practice rounds on the boards. Our full scored missions begin Friday.
Pictures from yesterday.
SAS Pudong FLL Team in St. Louis
April 27th. The SAS FLL team undertook a walkabout Tuesday morning down to the St Louis Arch. Today the meet begins with registration and Pit setup. It will be a long day of setup and practice. Pictures coming this evening.
SAS Pudong Heads to the First World Championships
SAS PD is off To the First World Festival–Today SAS Pudong Lego World Festival Team begins its trip to the Lego World Festival Championships held in St. Louis, Missouri. From Left to Right Alex Chen(10th), and Owen Liang(10th), Kevin Xu(8th), and Will Xu (10th) have been working very hard since February to prepare for this amazing opportunity. We will be not only representing our school, but we will be 1 of three teams representing the country of China.
Together, with two other SAS Pudong First Lego Teams, this team undertook a research project that looked at the way trash is collected and processed out of SAS Pudong. They have created and shared their research findings and will be taking their presentation to show the judges at the Championship. They have completely retooled their EV3 robot competition missions and on their last practice (Saturday) they broke 600 points on the competition board. They are still madly working to complete 1 additional board mission and if they get it and all the stars align they have the potential to break 700 pts which would be an awesome achievement. They have developed and will be presenting a Lego Core Values Presentation and a Design presentation to judges as well at the competition.
The Actual Competition runs from Wednesday, April 27th to Saturday, April 30th. Our SAS team is one of three teams representing China. Yes, the students and coaches (Barbara Boyer, Kevin David, and Tim Boyer) are feeling the pressure but the opportunity to compete and see other teams from around the world in the 4 First Levels (First Lego Jr, First Lego League, First Tech Challenge, and First Robotics Competition) is something that the coaches and most of these students have been working at for the last 4 years.
The Team Activities will be out on Twitter, or you can also check out our blog posts at
- http://sites.saschina.org/pdlibrary/
- http://sites.saschina.org/pdlibrary/sas-fll-2015/
- or follow us using #SASPDFLL
You can follow on twitter @SASPDLIB. Search this #SASPDFLL to see our progress.
You can also follow the Live Feed at the site below.
The Championship will be live streamed at http://www.firstchampionship.org/watch-championship-live
A HUGE thanks to all the volunteers, Faculty and Staff at SAS Pudong that have worked to make this all happen.
Space Camp Friday Night Report
Friday Night – April 1st.
From Tim Boyer
We have finished our Camp experience. We took the students back downtown after graduation today for the afternoon and we have now returned. Students are doing their final packing and getting ready for bed. We will have a very early wake-up tomorrow morning at 4:30 am. We will get on the bus at 5:15 am and head to the airport. Our Flight out is at 8:35 am out of Huntsville. We will head to Detroit and will have a few hours layover before we start our long flight back to Shanghai.
We to the best of our understanding will be landing in Terminal 1 at 1855. We will look forward to seeing you in Shanghai. The flight arrangements for our return trip are below.
We will be flying out of Huntsville on Delta flight 3985. We will be flying from Detroit to Shanghai on Delta flight 583 which will land in Shanghai on April 3 at 1855pm.
- DL3985 SA02APR HSVDTW 0835 1129
- DL583 SA02APR DTWPVG 1628 1855+1
At present, all students are well and healthy. We do have some sniffles and some allergies symptoms due to the amount of pine in the air here. All the students have done well, but they are tired from a long week of being “on” all the time. They are looking forward to returning home and chilling out for a day before returning to school on Tuesday.
We look forward to returning to Shanghai and sharing all the pictures of the week.
PS. We hope we have a quiet night. The last two nights have been a bit interesting, especially with the storm alerts last night. The weather looks good for tonight and our flights tomorrow.
See you in Shanghai!
Friday April 1- Graduation Day
We have had a full few days here. Internet access has been poor. Students graduate this morning. Then we will head out down to the mall area through supper. Last night at camp tonight the we start out trip back very early tomorrow morning. We land in Shanghai Sunday April 3 at 1855pm. We should land in Terminal 1. I will have students text you all when we land. I will send out a longer post tonight. With a recap of the last 2 days activities.
Space Camp Tuesday Morning
March 29th – The morning is nice and cool. Blue skies in store for the rest of the day. The student teams are up and starting their activities. I touched base with each team. Both teams have full days that end tonight with Shuttle Missions. The middle school team (Team Europa) is working with rocked construction and the science of spaceflight this morning. This afternoon they have a rope activity and then prep for their Orion Mission tonight. The team faces a 2 hour mission on the Orion module from 7 to 9 pm. It will be a long day, but looking at the students this morning, they are up for it.
The high school team (Team Elysium) is recovering from their night mission last night. It was a bit stressful, but the team leaders were impressed with the students ability to roll with the punches and deal with the various problems thrown at them during the 1 hour mission on the Shuttle Enterprise.
The team has a rope activity this morning and museum simulations. They complete their Mission Bravo training this afternoon. In addition they have presentation about Russian Space History and a robotics activity. After supper they have additional presentation that run up to the time they begin their Bravo Mission at 8:30 pm. It will be a late night for all our students.
I have the video from the HS Alpha Mission last night. Tonight I will record both the MS and HS missions.
The picture above is from the Davidson Space Museum on Camp. It shows the rocket engines. The size is huge. Each engine is about 5 meters across.
Space Camp Monday Afternoon
March 28th – Afternoon about Supper Time. It has been a full day formate students. The middle school team, had their first mission on the Endeavor. There was no viewing possible for their mission but their group leader took pictures that we will get on Friday. The high school team has been in the scuba tank. The high school team has their first shuttle mission is this evening at 7:30.
I will try to upload pictures this evening when I have a better internet connection
Well is is about 9:45 pm and it has been a long day for the students. It started early at about 8 am with wake up. I uploaded the schedules for both teams in an earlier post. I was able to touch base with both teams off an on through the day. The middle school teams looks good and is apparently functioning well. They had their first mission this afternoon on the Shuttle Endeavor. I was not able to view this in that this shuttle simulator is housed in a separate building with no viewing options for chaperones. I met with the team at their supper an they said that they survived the mission and were able to hit the last button before it was to late and were able to land the shuttle and complete the mission. Tomorrow the middle school team will complete their mission in the main building and I will be able to view and video record all the various aspects of the mission from mission control, the shuttle cockpit, and the space/science components.
The high school team had a really full day. They had their scuba period this afternoon and students were in the tank. I was able to grab some stills (see above) and some video which I will work to put up at least 1 segment tomorrow.
After dinner this evening, the high school team faced a rough mission. It started late, and they were one position down. They students in mission control, the shuttle cockpit, the EVA mission launch and finally the science bay. The mission got off to a rocky start, but the students held on through the full hour their mission lasted. I will try to debrief them tomorrow when I next see them to see how they felt about it. It was not an easy mission, but they did not give up on it and I believe the completed it successfully. I will add more when I find out who had which positions.
Tomorrow is another long day with both teams having missions to complete. I will continue to touch base with the students as I am allowed.
More Pics from today.
Space Camp Monday Morning
March 28th. Students well underway with today’s program. All students are up and functioning.
The middle school students are Team Europa. Their first mission is at 2:30 today. I will watch and attempt to video. The high school students are Team Elysium. Their first mission is at 8:30 this evening I will also watch and attempt to video. I will put both teams schedules below so you can see what their day is like. It is a full one for the students.
Weather a bit cooler today. No rain which is good. There are teams from England, Dubai, and Australia here this week as well as teams from the United States. Our students are fitting in well and report that their sleep patterns are starting to fall into place.
Middle School – Team Europa Schedule for Monday
High School -Team Elysium
The only fully connected shuttle set up in existence. All the stuff is the real thing
Space Camp – Sunday Morning
March 27th – Sunday Morning – We had a full day yesterday. Students were up and out of Space Camp by 9 am. We had a real lucky break. It turned out that the FRC (First Robotics Competition) Regional was being held in Huntsville at the Von Braun Center. It was free and open to the public so we decided to take the students there instead of going to the Botanical Gardens. About a third of the students on our trip have been or are involved in SAS robotics at the Middle School or HS level so the opportunity to see the “big” boy robotics at work was really exciting.
There were over 50 teams from the southeast United States and elsewhere competing in the 3 day event. We were able to get a tour of the pit area and watch about 45 minutes of the head to head missions as the big robots went at it. Our students were broken down into 3 groups. I was fortunate to be the middle school boy group and our tour leader was a member of team “Bomb Squad” which was ranked number 1 while we were there. The YouTube Video of the competition is below for any that are interested.
The robotics and the site was really a great opportunity for our robot oriented students.
Following the Robotic viewing we loaded back on the bus and headed for Bridge Street Mall. Students were able to get a quick lunch and decide on the movie to watch. 22 students went with Mrs. Boyer to watch Batman and Superman movie. 5 students went with me to see Zoopotopia. I think I got the better movie. Following the movies which let out about 5 pm students were able to grab a quick supper then we were transported back to Space camp.
Students transferred from their temporary rooms into their rooms for the rest of the week. The amount of pine pollen in the air is causing some students some sniffles. Regular Camp begins at lunch today with registration. In that our students are already in, their transfer will be easy. I will pick up the group leaders paperwork this afternoon. The students do not receive a schedule, but Sunday afternoon will be orientation to the program and some tours of the facility. On Monday along with other activities both the HS team and the MS team will be split into mission control groups and flight groups. They will begin their preflight preparation for their first launch on Tuesday. I will be there on Tuesday in in the leader viewing area to watch and I hope record their mission.
So far all are holding up ok and are getting sleep during the night. I checked in with them this morning when they were having breakfast.
Some of the students have picked up some coughs/sniffles from the flight over. The Camp infirmary is watching them. I have let the students know that if they are not feeling well, to let their group leader know. I have one student with a fever (Eric) and he is being monitored in the infirmary this morning. I will check back with the Camp at lunch and supper tonight to see how the students are doing. As a chaperone, I don’t get to see all the activities the students/teams are doing, but I hope to catch each of their launch missions. I will get pictures through the week as I am able and the camp photographers will give us a photo disk of all their activities that we will bring back to SAS.
Space Camp News Friday, March 24
March 24th – Friday Night. We had a full day today. Only a few students fell asleep on the bus trip. Hopefully they will be able to get a “full” night of rest tonight in that we have another full day planned for Saturday.
Students were up and ready at 9 am and we proceeded to the Target Mall. At the Mall area students scattered in groups of 3-4 students per group and visited Dollar Tree, Target, Game Stop, and more. Students picked up a lunch to go while there. At 1 pm we proceeded to the Monte Sano State Park on top of the big hill next to Huntsville. While at the park we had our lunch then had an quick Egg finding contest. Barbara Boyer had purchases plastic eggs and we had filled them with candy. I believe we found almost all of the hidden eggs. After the search we proceeded on a 1.2 mile hike/stroll around the crest of the park. It provided a number of great views. 
The weather for the time at the park was nearly perfect, blue skies, breezy but warm enough to have a good time. We completed the afternoon with about 1 hour of down time at the park play area. Many students took advantage of the swings, play ground equipment and the great expanse of grass. At 4 pm we rounded everyone up and headed back to drop the students off at camp.
While we were out, Space Camp graduated a huge group of campers. The dorm rooms should be much quieter tonight for the students. Tomorrow morning their breakfast should be less crowded.
Students reported that most got sleep last night. The hours many reported were often broken by periods of time awake as students are working through 13 hours of jet-lag.
Tomorrow we have a full day our of camp planned. We get picked up at 9 am again and we will head first to a FRC high school robotics competition. This is a regional event and the winner will proceed on to the World Championships in St. Louis in April. Being able to add this activity tomorrow morning is a big plus in that many on our trip are involved SAS Robotics at the Middle School and High School level. See (http://www.huntsville.org/event/2016-alabama-rocket-city-first%C2%AE-robotics-competition/31333/ ) for more information about this event.
Following the time at the Robotics Event, depending on time we will proceed to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens for an hour or so. If time does not allow we will instead immediately proceed to the Bridge Street mall area for lunch and a afternoon movie. We will have supper at the mall area and then work our way back to Space Camp.
Sunday begins our “real” Space Camp experience. Students will officially 
start their program and missions on Sunday. Sunday will have tours of the facility, getting to know the program activities, and preparation for Monday when they will have their first Mission Prep’s. The campers will take their first mission on Tuesday.
BoyerBookends 