Photo: Ken Denmead

It was sort of a last-minute decision for me to attend PAX Prime. I’d read (with some amount of envy) about the GeekDads attending PAX East earlier this year but hadn’t even considered the possibility of attending PAX myself, at least not this year —we had too many trips planned, vacation time was running out, etc. But here I am anyway! I’m just a lucky guy, with a fantastic wife who indulges my geekery.

I really didn’t have much of an idea what to expect. I’m staying with a friend, about a half-hour bus ride away from downtown and the convention center, so I missed a lot of the hustle and bustle when I arrived Thursday night. Riding the bus into town, I was torn between gawking out the window (watching for my first glimpse of downtown Seattle) and reading the con-appropriate book I’d brought with me, Tom Bissel’s Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. (Note: if you love video games, you need to read this book. I’ll tell you all about it later.) I did glance up from time to time, and got a glimpse of the loading cranes down at the harbor. They had the look of giant metal giraffes gathered around a watering hole—sort of a starved cousin of the AT-AT, maybe.

Photo: Ken Denmead

My bus stop was right across the street from the Benaroya Theater, where Warren Spector would be delivering the PAX keynote speech in about an hour and a half, and I saw people in geeky T-shirts and PAX badges on lanyards headed that way. But I’d seen on Twitter that some people had been in line for the keynote for nearly two hours already, so I decided it wasn’t really worth trying for. Instead, I walked over to the Sheraton, picked up my Speaker badge (surprisingly quickly) and then headed to the convention center, where I met up with fellow GeekDads Dave Banks and Michael Harrison.

Since the halls weren’t open yet, we kicked off PAX the right way: with a game of San Juan, on a little cafe table that was much too small. We finished up right at 10:00, and headed upstairs to explore the main hall. After finding a helpful Enforcer (the volunteers at PAX) who got us maps and schedules, we entered the Exhibit Hall and commenced gawking.

My first impression was that it was loud. The entrance we’d chosen was facing a Rock Band 3 stage, where somebody was belting out an off-tune rendition of some song I’ve since blocked out of my head. My second impression was: hey, look at all this room to walk! (I’ve been told that Saturday will be much more crowded, but it’s hard to imagine it beating the Comic-Con crowds.)

I walked around and admired a lot of the video games being demoed throughout the hall, but my main destination was the tabletop gaming sections, which were mostly around the edges. I got my first glimpse of Flying Frog Production’s upcoming Invasion From Outer Space game (which looks awesome) as well as Mayfair’s Settlers of America (which looks daunting). There was also a game of Settlers of Catan being played on a Microsoft Surface table, which was pretty impressive. And then I boggled over Geek Chic’s custom-made gaming tables, which look like nice dining tables until you pull off the leaves to uncover the gorgeous gaming surface underneath.

I’d love to tell you all about the rest of the day, but I really need to get going so I can catch my bus downtown again. We met up with Ken Denmead when he arrived and got to see the Dungeons & Dragons party bus, and then tried out the D&D Essentials Red Box. It was in fact my first ever experience with D&D, and it was pretty fun. I can see why it could become a lifestyle. I played a bunch of games from the Tabletop Gaming Headquarters, where you could check out a board game from their library and take it to any of the many many tables around the convention center. And then, as I was making my last sweep through the convention center on my way out to catch my bus … I saw an empty seat at a Microsoft Surface table, where they were playing some sort of space-aliens cooperative tower defense game. I stayed for about an hour, missing the midnight bus home by about five minutes, and ended up waiting an extra 25 minutes for the next bus.

It was a long, full day, and I can’t wait to do it again.

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GeekDad is at PAX all weekend, and we’ll be adding pictures as we take them.

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It’s been a tough three years for fans of Lego and the Harry Potter stories. When the theme was discontinued at the end of 2007, many of us despaired of them ever coming back. When Lego and Warner Brothers announced earlier this year that six new sets would be coming out this fall, hope was restored. And now the release date is less than a month away!

In addition to the Lego Hogwarts game that came out last month, six new sets will hit shelves on October 1. Most of them are retreads of old sets, with somewhat different designs and different minifigs, but that’s not a bad thing, really: I’d be much happier paying $130 for a new Hogwarts set than paying $500-something for an old one. The sets are, in ascending order of price and awesomeness: Freeing Dobby, Quidditch Match, Hagrid’s Hut, The Burrow, Hogwarts Express and of course Hogwarts Castle.

As far as I’m aware, the only truly new set among those is The Burrow. While this set looks excellent, I’m a bit annoyed that it’s based on the movie of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and not on that or any of the other books. You can tell this because the set includes minifigs of Fenrir Greyback and Bellatrix Lestrange, as well as flames that you can put on the house to show it burning — as every fan of the books knows, the scene in the film where Greyback and Bellatrix attack the protagonists at The Burrow and set the house ablaze appears not at all in the book.

But no matter: the sets are still very cool, and I’m sure my family will be acquiring several. Just from the pictures online, my favorite is Hogwarts Castle, but its price and the coolness of the Hogwarts Express one might make me change my mind — heck, the latter might be worth it just to get the awesome Luna Lovegood minifig.

Images © The LEGO Group

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After months of competing, the first MoonBots Challenge has come to a close with Team Landroids, a group from Livingston, New Jersey taking first place. The team is made up for five eighth-grade neighborhood friends named Karlin, Stanley, Brian, Gage and Jeffrey. The Landroids were captained by a dad: John Yeh. The winning team’s members are veterans of FIRST Lego League and are no strangers to science and robotic competitions. You can learn more about the Landroids and the protoypes they worked through by watching their documentary or visiting their Web site.

While the Landroids’ final run for the points makes the competition look easy (watch their video after the jump), it was anything but simple. All of their plans were nearly dashed as  problem after problem popped up for the Landroids. But in the end, all was good and the Landroids emerged victoriuous.

Master Lego robot builder and MoonBots judge, Steve Hassenplug, talked about what set Team Landroids apart from the others. “I am very impressed with the results from all the finalists.  Clearly all the teams worked hard and had a great deal of fun, but it appeared Landroids approached the competition with a level of professionalism unmatched by any other team, and they truly earned first place. I enjoyed the opportunity to judge the excellent work the teams did.  They were all very impressive.”

Also recognized were the Shadowed Craters, who captured second place, and Team Moonwalk, which grabbed third. The Shadowed Craters were profiled here a couple weeks ago and are from the Miramar area of San Diego. Team Moonwalk is another New Jersey team (with part of the team hailing from Connecticut).

Anousheh Ansari, another MoonBots judge, commented on third place winners, Team Moonwalk: “Two things stood out for me in this team. One was because they used their technical knowledge to outline the scientific benefits of space exploration but also looked into the social benefits of space exploration and the opportunity for different nations to collaborate and create a lasting peace. This was one of my personal experiences on my flight to ISS. This collaborative aspect of space is what most people forget about.”

The long road to the finals began with more than 200 applications from around the globe, but mainly located in the United States. These teams were tasked with creating a documentary about their team, creating a prototype using Lego Digital Designer, Google Sketchup or LDraw and create a Web site to share information about their team.

From there, the field was narrowed down to 20 teams for Phase Two. (You can review the documentary entries from the top 20 teams who made it into Phase Two here and here.) These Phase Two teams were given Mindstorms kits and a set of objectives to complete within a three minute time period. Based on the team’s performance and some other criteria, a winner was chosen by a panel. Judges for this final phase included Anousheh Ansari, Steve Hassenplug, Dean Kamen and Jeff Kodosky.

“Congratulations to all of the MoonBots winners and finalists,” said Jeff Kodosky, Cofounder and NI Business and Technology Fellow at National Instruments. “NI is proud to join with all the other MoonBots sponsors and partners in this incredibly innovative challenge that will help advance science, technology, engineering and math education throughout the world.”

Team Landroids will enjoy  the grand prize of a trip to Billund, Denmark to visit Lego headquarters, as well as a  kit and registration for either FIRST Robotics FRC or FTC. The Shadowed Craters receive a 64GB iPod Touch for each team member and a kit and registration for FIRST competition. Team Moonwalk receives a kit and registration for a FIRST competition too.

Thanks to all teams who entered. Every team did a fantastic job, according to William Pomerantz, Senior Director of Space Prizes for the X Prize Foundation. “The work these students did this summer was truly spectacular. The mission very closely paralleled the work our Google Lunar X Prize teams were doing, so we greatly enjoyed watching those technical challenges worked out on a different scale. The new era of lunar exploration is being built on the contribution of people of all ages and nationalities, and it is clear that the MoonBots participants have what it takes to make important contributions.”

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