Mannheim

Since our main focus in Mannheim was going to the Lego competition, we spent a lot of time at the Rosengarten convention centre but  we did find some time to wander around the city. The University is housed in very beautiful buildings, part of which was once the castle.  The nearby Jesuit church was being prepared for a wedding when we stopped in for a look and indeed it was an excellent June day for a wedding. The flowers in the parks were lovely.

We found the Angel of Peace sculpture "Friedensengel" by Gerhard Marcks which was removed from it's more prominent spot beside the Jesuit Church and hidden away in a non-tourist area (Mannheim, E6). It was created in 1952 to commemorate all those people who died violent deaths during the Nazi regime.  There is another memorial beside the Angel but it is only a dark block of rock and we didn't even realize we missed it until we were reading later.

We also found the Holocaust Memorial that is located in an equally strange place. It is right on the sidewalk of the ParadePlatz but it consists of a clear glass cube with names that are written so you would have to be on the inside to read. There is no identifying plaque and no one walking along this busy street even stops to consider it. There was supposed to be a plaque in the sidewalk, but we couldn't find it; maybe it was covered up by the construction boarding that was also placed along the sidewalk.

Mozart spent time in  Mannheim and that is being commemorated by a summer music festival advertised by these hot pink deer statues. Not sure about the design of these, but you can't miss noticing them.

Near the conference centre is a horseshoe shaped park dominated by the massive "water tower" (der Wasserturm).  The fountains, waterfalls,  and green arbours made this a very restful place in the centre of the city and it was a popular spot for wedding shots on Saturday afternoon. 

Heidelberg

Finally posting a couple from our Germany trip!
We only had a short time to spent in Heidelberg but we had a nice stroll around the old town. We climbed up to the castle and walked around it but to me, the castle seems the most impressive with the way it sits nestles in the hills on the edge of town. There are 3 main churches in the old town. The church of the Holy Spirit has a tower where you can climb up and get a magnificent aerial view of the town, bridges across the Nektar River and the castle and surrounding hills. The Jesuit church is very light and spacious with a magnificent organ at the back of the church and St. Peter's Church, "Pieters kirk" is the oldest, build in 1645?

We were able to see the Gothic Renaissance building side by side with the later Baroque style. Most of Heidelberg was destroyed between 1686 and 1689 and few buildings survive from before that. On exception is the "Rathouse", now a hotel and restaurant. Most of the buldings build as the town was reconstructed are in the lighter Baroque style (pictures)

Fortunately, Heidelberg was spared in WWII since it didn't have any significant military or industrial sites, and so can see these beautiful buildings from the 1700's.

L'eggo My Lego

First Lego League Open Finals 2012 were held in Mannheim, Germany and there were 70 teams representing almost 30 countries. The teams had all qualified in their own countries at regional, provincial and national competitions. The competition was held in the Rosengarten conference centre which has a beautiful facade and is across from a welcoming park with a big water tower called "der Wasserturm."

Der Wasserturm on de left, Shaun the Sheep slipper on de right.

The Robo-Raptors Team from Ontario

Each team was judged in a number of areas divided into core values, research project, robot design and programming and robotic games. The robotic games were the only part where spectators could watch and cheer for all the teams but each team also had a booth where you could meet them and ask them questions and they usually had some sort of game or give away  prepared. At one of the Swiss tables you used a Lego gun to shoot an apple from the hat of William Tell to receive a Swiss chocolate. The Slovenian Rooster team had handmade pottery medallions that they had made themselves. The team from Iceland had collected beach rocks and painted them with the flag and Viking symbols.   They also had posters and handouts showing their research and information about their country.

One of the Dutch team Lego and a group of Dutch coaches

The research topic this year was about Food Safety and it was amazing to see the ingenuity and the amount of work that went into these projects. The projects varied from better shipment of apples to protect them to filtering shell fish bits out of saltwater, making contaminated corn safe to eat by adding 2 certain spices, testing milk for evidence of mastitis, determining if an isolated town could survive on its own if it didn't have any imported products.  It was also interesting to see how different teams attacked the problem of how to build the robot, some were small and compact and others were big massive structures.

There were 2 teams from Canada. The Robo Raptors are a team from Stoney Creek with 4 members at the competition and 3 more still in Canada. Their project involved designing an automatic hand washing station to improve sanitation in restaurants.  They won a second place trophy for their robot programming for using a unique way of calibrating light sensors. The other Canadian team was from a school in Mississauga and they also won a trophy for their research project. They had looked at using UV light to sterilize equipment used with food. At first they had difficulty because the experts would talk to them because they were  "too young," but they persisted and came up with an excellent project.

It was obvious that everyone was having a lot of fun there. I think the coaches were having as much fun as the kids, although some of them were a little stressed.  There were about an equal number of girls and boys and there were at least 3 all girls teams that I spoke to. Most of the teams were experienced having been together for several years but I met the Australian team of 3 girls ages (9,9 and 11) and it was their first year as a team and they made it all the way to this level. The most fun loving team seemed to be the Terminators from Ireland.  The award for the most indomitable spirit goes to one team from Israel who had a fire in their hotel the first night and lost everything - robot, passports, clothes. They showed real spirit and courage by continuing to compete in every category they could and greeting everyone with a smile and a taste of Baklava.

As a spectator, there was lots to see and do and everyone was friendly and willing to discuss their project. The kids have gone to so much work to get to this competition, it is obvious that they have learned many things besides just Lego and robotics.

Lego Robotics Competition

From June 7-10 we went to Mannheim Germany to see our friends the Ferriers, who had made a Lego robotics team called the Robo-Raptors. On June 7 we took 7 trains, and got to Mannheim Germany then we found the man we were renting the apartment from (he was pretty friendly) and then he showed us the apartment and we went and got some pita gyros and bubble tea (very cultural dinner I call it.)

Then on June 8 we went to Heidelberg and Zach got a nice hat then we went to mannheim and we found the place where the competition was, it was right beside the water tower. on the first day there was the presentation the core values and the competition. On the second day there was just the competition and in the finals it was China vs Japan and they played each other twice, on the first round China got about 260 and Japan got 96 on the second round china got 200 and some thing and japan got 100 and something, you could see that Japan was really flustered. At the end of the competition all the players from the teams were trading T-Shirts and things. then we went out for dinner with the Ferriers and had pizza then we went home. June 10 today we went on 6 trains and got home to Netherlands safely.

Robo, Robo, Robo, Robots!

This weekend we went to Mannheim Germany for a Lego Robotics competition. We have friends from Canada who were actually competing (Their name was the Robo - Raptors) and they got a trophy for the second best programming design of their robot. The name of the 2012 First Lego League theme was "Food Factor."

 Here are some pictures of the winning team's robot attachments. When you buy the Robotics kit you get the "Brick," 2 light sensors and 3 motors. The brick is like the hard drive that you put all of your programming into.

 Some teams made little games like here this swiss team made a gun out of lego parts that shot small pieces of lego. You had to shoot an apple off of a hat to get a swiss Chocolate! (Not a real apple though.)

 Here on the right is part of the course that the robots have to go through. The robots have to drop a pile of things on the table with the flower (They lose points if they drop things on the ground or miss things,) they also have to drop things in the sink, they have to catch the black ring and take it back to home base, and in the 2 other things that are alike are germs which they have to catch or they lose 20 points. On the left is an electronic stamper that a Japanese team made.

No matter what the sport coaches always like to sleep! Here on the left is a Canadian coach from the other Canadian team, sleeping of course! On the right is a robot that was brought by a team to the competition.

On the left is a picture of one of the coaches from the Denmark team. On the right is a picture of a guy's hat who actually had the business card of the owner of the Lego,(the business card is the Lego man, on the front is his name and on the back is his phone number and email) Now how cool is that!?

On the left is an electric windmill one of the 5 teams from the netherlands made, and on the right is a picture of a lego smarties sorter made by one of the 2 Norwegian teams. The smarties sorter sorted them by colour using a colour sensor. When the smartie goes under the colour sensor the colour sensor, the sensor dumps it in the right bucket, (but it didn't really work.)

7 Trains and a Bus

Zachary, Jacob and I are off on a 4 day road trip to Germany. We are going to see our friends from Canada who have qualified for the First Lego League Robotics finals in Mannheim, Germany.  We are traveling to Germany today and will visit with them at the competition on Friday and Saturday and also  visit the cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim.

Our trip itinerary today involved a city bus and 7 trains. We even managed to make 2 connections that were 4 minutes.  If you want a geography exercise for today, see if you can find all these connections:

Amersfoort - Ede-Wageningen

Ede-Wageningen - Nijemegen

Nijemegen - Venlo (this is the border town between Netherlands and Germany)

 Venlo - Monchengladbach

Monchengladbach - Koln  (Cologne)

Koln -  Mannheim

Mannheim - Heidelberg

Check out our upcoming blogs from Mannheim, Heidelberg and the Lego Robotics competition.