Jamboree Day 4 - Thursday, July 29

Up at 6:00. Watched over the campsite until noon putting "patrol crossing" signs on the gateway and organizing the leader area. Picked up lunch. Went to the vault (museum) at the Mysterium Compass during the rain storm. It was a great exhibit of historical scout items, by far the best I have ever seen. Went to see Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and hear them answer questions. Did about half of the Conservation Trail and earned a patch. "Spam and More" iron chef dinner. Walked around subcamps 18 and 19 trading patches including ones featuring Cheerwine and Bristol Motor Speedway. Got a Sun Drop to drink from a scout. Went to and from the shower in the rain.

Jamboree Day 3 - Wednesday, July 28

Woke up at 5:00. Cereal and bananas for breakfast. In class A uniforms and off to the arena show a bit after 7:00. Got to the arena at 9:10. Arena show was quite good but hot. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave a very good speech sharing some of his scouting experience. Other speakers were the Chief Scout Executive, Order of the Arrow Chief and Miss America who also sang. Also saw WWE stars, parachuters and a great drill team. Lots of water was handed out. The troop was dismissed after the show and the boys gave the scoutmasters their class A uniforms to return to camp. Grabbed lunch on the way back to camp. Went to escort back to camp two scouts from the subcamp 11 medical tent. Rode the bus back then handed off the boys to Scoutmaster Rob at the second bus stop. Walked back to camp stopping to shoot clay pigeons with a shotgun. Hit the first four but missed the last one. Jambalaya dinner. Relaxed at camp after dinner.

Jamboree Day 2 - Tuesday, July 27

Woke up at 5:30. Helped put the local team license plates on the gateway. Scrambled eggs for breakfast. Attended the Subcamp 17 flag raising ceremony. Took the long walk to visitor parking taking pictures and making a few stops along the way. Traded for a Star Trek JSP from the future birthplace of James T. Kirk (Iowa) along with their Hawkeye troop patch. Stopped at W.D. Boyce Council (my council when I was a scout) Troop 1036 and talked to their scoutmasters. They actually had a tent with them from my era and had a fabulous gateway. I later traded for one of their JSPs on my way back to camp. Decided on a meeting place for my visitors coming on Friday. Walked to Technology Quest eating lunch and taking some pictures on the way. Went through the Technology Quest exhibits. Saw a good science show and some impressive robots. Got a free t-shirt and memory card. Quickly visited Brownsea Island – a recreation of the first scout camp. Walked back to camp trading for a Blues Brothers JSP on the way. Handed out some patrol equipment. Taco dinner. Troop meeting. Shower. PLC at 10:00 and then to bed.

Jamboree Day 1 - Monday, July 26

Woke up at 4:00. Bought ice and put the frozen gallon milk jugs in the Igloo coolers with the ice. Had a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash browns. Left for the Triangle Towne Center a bit after 6:00. Lots to do getting everything loaded under and into the bus. Departure was delayed because the bus from Fayetteville got stuck in accident traffic and arrived late. Troop photo taken in front of the bus before departure. Watched “Up” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” on the bus. Lunch stop of donated Chick-fil-A sandwiches at a rest stop. Group picture in front of our equipment truck. Went to the wrong entrance, but they let us in anyway. Some initial trouble setting up the shade fly, but finally found the rope and stakes to get the job done. Unloaded the truck and got camp set up started after our oddly shaped site got straightened out. Tents and flies were set up. Dinner of BBQ sandwiches, beans, cole slaw, peaches and rice crispy treats. Got the gateway mostly set up. Shower at 10:00 and then to bed.

Lego League Tournament

We had our First Lego League Tournament Saturday, February 13, 2010. It went pretty well. Our robot, Charlie had some difficulties when running his missions in the actual tournament. We were practicing beforehand and it went great. The highest amount of points we programmed Charlie to get was 365 out of 400. So when we were practicing it was doing everything correctly. We were very excited and pretty confident that Charlie would do what he was supposed to do in the tournament. When it was our turn to run the robot we were disappointed to see Charlie get a score of 125. It was better than what The Charlie Bytes got the previous year, but we knew Charlie could do better! We got better scores the next two runs after that...only a ten point difference between each one. So our first run we got 125 points., on our second run we got 135 points then 145 points.

The first thing we did in the tournament was our project and interviews. We had a robotics interview, a team work interview and our project interview. So we did our project then answered some questions that the judges had for us. It was pretty easy.

At the end they were handing out trophies and plaques. First place would get a trophy and second place would get a plaque. The categories for each trophy and plaque were: Teamwork, Robot Design, Project, and Robot Runs (I'm not exactly sure if that was the actual name, but it is the basic idea of what it was). Unfortunately we didn't get anything and we were almost sure that we were going to get something for the Project because we had an excellent project! After the Award Ceremony, they listed some teams that were going to the State Tournament (all of North Carolina). They made it kind of like Extreme Makeover Home Edition by saying something to open the folder showing the list of teams going. We read the list and we were greatly disappointed that we didn't make it.

The Charlie Bytes' Website

Here is the website for our First Lego League team, The Charlie Bytes: http://thecharliebytes.110mb.com/ Enjoy!