Following your dreams

So normally this is just my LEGO stuff blog, and although rarely updated, i wanted to keep it pure. But, in situations as these, this blog should take another turn.

Just about three months ago I woke up to an email that would change my life. It honestly couldn't have come at a worse time - it was my first day of what would be a masters of education program. I was asked if i would be interested in working for a certain toy company at a certain far away land, and needless to say, the answer was obvious.
The past 3 months was spent fleshing out this interest, from sending out background information, to renewing passports and applying for visa's and also keeping it a close secret to myself and to a few people. With all the paperwork all set, I figure I should chronicle my experiences - because i'm a sap like that - and also, if it pans out, I'd have a story to tell to those who might want to follow in footsteps only tread by few and far between.
Two weeks from today I'll be flying out to Billund, Denmark to spend 5 weeks in what might as well be heaven for me. I'll be living a dream that I prayed for, hoped for and worked my butt off for and maybe, just maybe it'll become something more than a short stint in what's been seven years of waiting for a big break.
But even if it doesn't, it'll still have been worth while. It'll make my decision to leave the DEP, to leave the LEGO Store, and to do everything i've done up to now worth it. I know it won't make me rich, but its a dream i've been following forever and wouldnt that be worth all the money in the world? I've heard that success follows passion...and here it is, have passion. Follow your dreams, and maybe you'll get there. It certainly hasn't been easy.

Hopefully i'll have some readers, and things can get less retrospective as the next 14 days pass. well, I plan to update as much as I can. T minus 14 days.

MY FLL teams

Bricktron for Haiti

Team Bricktron did a phenomenal job winning their tournament. They really came together the last week on their project. More on them at
http://bricktron469.blogspot.com/2010/02/bricktron-for-haiti.html

Team Y Tech does Teamwork!

Team Y tech, at their first competition came up with a Trophy! no advancing to the next level yet, but they will.

Beam Shooter

This was one of my favorite projects of the year, and I finally got it up to flickr.


the rest of the pix on my flickr page, along with some basic description under some of the pix.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/1brick/sets/72157622975485392/

It can shoot REALLY far, at least in the scale of LEGO. Maybe one day i'll have be automated. But as a kids project, its best left to some manual labor.

Smart Move Programming

I've been toying with finite state machines with NXT-g for a while now. This one's my latest exercise in using the myriad of functions that NXT-g has.

I've got timers counting down from 150 seconds, Logic blocks for "and" logic, sounds for debugging, loops with logic ends, tons of myblocks, opening and closing files, switches with multiple values, displaying custom images and all that good stuff.


This program is for my the Smart Move challenge in FLL. This is probably the closest I've gotten to actually finishing all of the missions, even though they weren't as hard as they've been in the last few years. (Hundreds of children could probably beg to differ that they were hard). That said, my robot, IROH will get his pictorials when he's ready. Otherwise, i've got the whole program up on Flickr.com/photos/1brick .

Biggest problem with this program? Screen flickering, I need to find a new spot for the display clearing. I'd rather my program not wait .1 of a second before it runs, even though it hasnt been a problem.

Techball Base Red

Techball Base Red
Originally uploaded by 1brick

Techball anyone?

Some serious uploading

I hope everyone can come check out my Flickr account, I've done some SERIOUS uploading in the last week

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1brick/

everything from new LDD builds to old robots long gone

enjoy

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.