Over the past few days since Christmas I’ve been hibernating.  It’s dark, and cold, and it’s cozy inside where I’m organizing things…cooking a bit…and knitting a lot.

Here are the hats that I’ve made over the past few days.  They have been made in preparation for the kickoff of the FIRST robotics build season (Jan 7th).  Our team is growing, and as such the new heads need new hats!

Hat #56 was started earlier in the month, but finished in the past few days.  The robot and number glow in the dark.

Hat #57 is a very stripey hat with bit of glow in the dark yarn in there somewhere.

Hat #58 is a little special.  It fits like a bucket hat, or a cow boy hat depending on how you fix the brim.  The brim is worked as an attached i-cord over a wire, so the hat can take on a variety of shapes.  This was a bit of an improvisational knitting task.  The original cast on edge which was going to be the brim ended up close to the crown of the hat.  Fingers crossed it will fit properly!Hat #59 is a more traditional hat, like the earlier versions…with robots knit right in.

Finally, hat #60 is knit in more subtle colours to suit the intended recipient.

I’m very much looking forward to handing out these hats on kickoff day!  For more information about our robotics team check out the K-Botics website and read the blog.

This hat is a particularly special hat.  It is the first hat that I’ve ever knit out of sock weight yarn.  It was an experiment in the scale of a pattern.  The very same robot charts look quite intricate on this hat!

It is knit out of superwash merino wool, and it is so soft, warm, and stretchy.  All the additional time and care were definitely worth it!  I think that this hat will be worn lots, and appreciated for the warmth and care and time invested.  I look forward to see this hat on the head of a smiling K-Bot soon!

With a new season of robotics comes the new flock of robot hats.  Here are hats #53

And #54

We’re preparing for the kick off of the FIRST robotics tournament this January.  We work each Thursday building skills in technology and teamwork.  It’s a large group this year, but the good thing is that this year everyone is learning to knit!

Ever since knitting a hat for Woodie Flowers at the New York City Regional competition, I’ve been thinking about what would make a good hat for Dean Kamen.

People had mentioned that he wouldn’t wear it unless it matched with his denim ensemble.  The FIRST logo is very important to him, so that was incorporated, as was his name, and of course lots of robots!

During the competition, one of our mentors wore a hole in her jeans, and we sacrificed them for the cause.  The jeans were cut lengthwise in strips about 1/4 inch wide (any thinner and the fabric will fray too much, any thicker and it will not knit properly).  The denim strips are in the stripes at the top of the hat.

Knitting the hat was the easy part.  Finding Dean Kamen on the last day of Championships proved to be much more challenging.  After the final matches on Einstein, I headed out with another mentor in search of him.  We were lucky to meet Monica, a woman who works at FIRST in New Hampshire.  She told us that Dean had already left the building, but that she would pack up the hat and card, and be sure that he got them.

Thanks Monica!  We appreciate your helpful delivery.  We’re hoping that Dean will wear the hat, and take a photo to send to us, but we realize he’s a busy guy.

To see more of what we did at our competition, and to see the FIRST build season in a nutshell tune in to CNN, they’re airing a special about education and how special FIRST is.

Heading to St. Louis (19 hours on a bus) was great for sleeping and knitting.  The weather was stormy, and it was hard to see the arch as we approached.

This hat, number 50 was intended for Morgan Freeman…but we never ended up seeing him or hearing him at the competition.  Hat 50 will be repurposed for someone else sometime soon.

Hat 51 was created in the stands at the World Championships.We had an exciting time playing with and against the best robots in the world.  We met some of our old friends, and made new ones.

It turns out that several teams knit hats!  I’d like to think ours are the most unique out there, but I challenge all other teams to engineer creative hats for themselves.

We saw ASIMO the robot from Honda that can climb stairs, run, walk, and stand on one foot (as seen above).  It was such a great demonstration of highly skilled engineering and design.

Captain Canada and I had a walk and saw the arch in the sunshine…. and later in the trip we all were treated to a concert by the Black Eyed Peas.

It was an exciting time for all of us!

Before I knew it, hat 51 was complete!  The needles didn’t sit idle for long.  A hat for Dean Kamen was the next on the agenda.

After earning a spot at the World Championships for robotics, knitting was kept on the back burner for a while….time was spent doing fundraising–a fantastic bottle drive….

…building a battery caddy….

…decorating Easter eggs…

…and preparing for a mammoth bus ride to St. Louis!

While with the K-Botics team at the Greater Toronto Regional competition, hats 48 and 49 took shape.

Hat 48 did a number on my circulars–the cord snapped right off at the needle!  It’s a good thing I brought a back up pair!

The competition was the 10th anniversary of FIRST robotics in Canada.  It was really exciting to compete, and even more thrilling to win the Engineering Inspiration award which qualified us to compete at the World Championships in St. Louis.

Knitting has really caught on at robotics competitions–with our team at least.  At one point there were 4 or 5 of us knitting and cheering in the stands.

As the end of March approaches, my hat total is getting closer and closer to 50.  This is hat #47, knit for a boy who skateboards and has long hair.  He wanted a hat that would droop, and hopefully this one fits the bill.

What he doesn’t yet know is that the robot and team number glow in the dark!  K-Botics is getting ready for another competition next weekend.  I’m packing up my knitting needles and robotics yarn stash, and aiming for 50.

Last week, in New York with K-Botics, we met a man named Woodie Flowers.  He’s an important founding member and mentor for the FIRST robotics organization.  He models “G.P” (gracious professionalism) in his interactions and encouragement for our teams.  He asked us all to sign his shirt, and he chatted with us about our team and our robot for a while.  I had thought it would be fun to make him a hat, so we asked if that would be ok.  He got out his iPhone and used the caliper tool to measure out how big his ponytail is so we’d know how big a hole to put in the hat.  What a guy!

I knit through most of the day, and ended up with a hat by the end of it!

It had GP on the back by the ponytail hole, and Woodie written across the front.

We wrote him a thank you card for being such a good example for us.

I think he was pleased to get his new hat…

What do you think?

Yarn!  It’s great for knitting hats….here’s hat #45 (2nd one this weekend)

Our robot needed some rope to pull a part loose and deploy our minibot.  We took turns making a braided rope (similar to making friendship bracelets).  It’s cool that our team yarn ended up on our robot.

The yarn was also great for games of cats cradle that kept breaking out while waiting for something to happen…

Before long there were cats cradle games in the stands too!

So be sure, when you are packing for a competition, bring along a little yarn for you and your friends.