Tips History | Teams of Innovative Problem Solvers (TIPS)

Paul Fitzgerald founded Teams of Innovative Problem Solvers Inc. (TIPS) to meet the organizational and resource needs to sustain and expand opportunities for kids in problem solving activities in the South Burlington area.

Past Activities
2009-2010
Paul Fitzgerald started the Queen City Chess Club (QC^3). The drop-in club met weekly, year-round, in the cafe at Healthy Living Market. Paul provided free chess lessons and supervised games between players. Players were encouraged to notate their games and discuss the games following play. Most sessions began by solving chess problems in small groups. The Club produced a kindergarten state champion, and runner-up, and numerous state champions played with the club.

Click here to visit the QC^3 website.

2010-2011
Paul Fitzgerald started the Jr. FLL team, Lego Bolts, in 2010 with a 6 kids, grades k-3, that attended The Schoolhouse. The team met weekly for 10 weeks. During practices, kids would engage in building prompts and guided sharing activities. The team also worked on a long-term project for the Body Forward theme, which was a lego cast with a hinge that allowed the user to open the hinge on the cast to scratch and itch.

Click here to see the team’s blog page.
Click here to learn more about the Body Forward Jr. FLL Challenge

Paul Fitzgerald coached The Queen City Chess Club expended its enrollment and produced a first grade and second grade state champion. The Club also participated in events at the YMCA, Folsom School and the Fall Classic.

2011-2012
Paul Fitzgerald coached an Odyssey of the Mind team in division II for the Orchard School in the Balsa Problem, You Make the Call. The team wrote a long-term skit based on the Three Little Pigs. The team met bi-weekly for 4-10 hours, for 10 weeks, from January to March, to prepare for the competition.

Click here to visit the team’s page for the solution to this problem.
Click here to learn more about the You Make the Call Problem from Odyssey of the MInd.

Paul Fitzgerald coached The Queen City Chess Club expended its enrollment and produced a second grade and kindergarten state champions. The club met weekly, year-round, in the cafe at Healthy Living Market. The Club participated in the Vermont State Chess Championships, the Vermont Fall Scholastic Tournament and a Chess and Math competition in Montreal.

Click here to visit the Queen City Chess Club website.

2012-2013
The Green Mountain Gears were formed by Paul Fitzgerald with three participants. The team participated in the Dartmouth Regional Qualifier for Senior Solutions. The team met with experts on seniors at UVM Medical Center and a local seniors home. The team also met with author Doug Wilhelm and a publisher from Choose Your Own Adventures LLL, which is based in Vermont. The team developed a “Choose Your Own Adventure” game in Scratch that told the story of a senior to address the problem that seniors feel disconnected from their families. It was hoped that relatives would play the game to lean about the seniors. The kids interviewed several seniors for the project, including Olympic Medalist Barbara Cochran. The team met bi-weekly for 10 weeks, 4-10 hours a week, from August to November, to prepare for the competition.

Click here to read the article about this activity in The Other Paper.
Click here to visit the Green Mountain Gears website.
Click here to learn about the Senior Solutions FLL

The Green Mountain Gorillas were formed with 7 kids by Paul Fitzgerald. The team participated for Orchard School in Odyssey of the Mind Division I Problem III Art-chitecture. The kids conducted field trips of local religious buildings in order to developed a skit that was set in a Cathedral in the middle-ages. The team developed 3 artifacts that presented the concepts such as water and earth. The team met bi-weekly for 4-10 hours, for 10 weeks, from January to March, to prepare for the competition.

Click here to read the article about this program that ran in The Other Paper.
Click here to read more about the Art-Chitecture problem from Odyssey of the MInd.

Paul Fitzgerald ran two divisions of Perennial Math for 20+ kids on Saturdays monthly from November through March at the Healthy Living teaching kitchen.

Click here to read about this activity in The Other Paper.

Paul also mentored two kids that won the Scratch programming competition, Energy Boss, at Carnegie Mellon with their recess based generator project.

Click here to play the game.
Click here to learn more about Energy Boss at CS2N

Click here to read the article about the QC^3 from The Other Paper.
Click here to read the article about the Vermont State Scholastic Chess Championship that ran in The Other Paper.

2013-2014
The Green Mountain Gears were the runner-up for the Champions Award and presented a project called Flood Trek, which was a game written in Scratch that was designed to teach people skills they would need to be prepared for a flood. The team met with several experts, including meteorologist Tom Messner and Alchemist Owner Jenn Kimich to help understand problems related to flooding. The team presented their game at the Champlain Valley Mini-Maker Faire. The team qualified for the NH/VT Regional Championships and received a Judges Award. The team met bi-weekly for 10 weeks, 4-10 hours a week, from August to November, to prepare for the competition.

Click here to play the game Flood Trek.
Click here to read the article about the Mini-Maker Faire that ran in The Other Paper.
Click here to read the article about the Norwich Qualifier that ran in The Other Paper.
Click here to read the article about the Judges award from the NH/VT Regional Competition.
Click here to learn more about the Nature’s Fury FLL Challenge.

Five kids participated on the Green Mountain Gorillas in Odyssey of the Mind for Orchard School in Division I, problem III, the Not So Haunted House. The team won their problem and the Ranatra Fusca Award for the Most Creative Team. They were specifically sited for their pvc instrument and original music played on the instrument. The team met bi-weekly for 4-10 hours, for 10 weeks, from January to March, to prepare for the competition.

Click here to read the article about the Ranatra Fusca Award that ran in The Other Paper.
Click here to read the Not So Haunted House Challenge from Odyssey of the Mind

Paul Fitzgerald ran a Math Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools (MOEMS) team for 30+ kids, including the kids from the teams, from 8 different schools. The team met monthly for five months, from November to March.

Click here to read the article about the program that ran in The Other Paper.
Click here to learn more about MOEMS.

2014-2015
FLL
The Green Mountain Gears won the Norwich Qualifier FLL Event and won the Mechanical Design Award at the NH/VT Regional Championships in Nashua, NH. The team developed an anti-bully game, Bully Tracker, in GameMaker Pro that integrated original art work and original music in a game where the main character used humor to make allies and to convert by-standers and bullies into allies. Each level included facts about bullying. The team interviewed excerpts at a local community college to help them with their game. The team presented their game at the Champlain Valley Mini-Maker Faire. The team met bi-weekly for 10 weeks, 4-10 hours a week, from August to November, to prepare for the competition.

Click here to download the game, Bully Tracker, for PC.
Click here to read the article about team in The Other Paper.
Click here to learn more about the World Class Challenge from FLL

FTC
Paul Fitzgerald formed The Green Mountain Gears FTC team with five kids in order to begin the transition to the next level of competition. In order to keep costs low, the team fabricated their robot entirely from legos. They competed at the Vermont Championships. The team met for 32 hours during the December and February school vacations.

Click here to see the team’s page for this robot.
Click here to see the FTC Challenge document for

Most of these kids went on to represent Fredrick H Tuttle Middle School in Division II at the Vermont State Champions in Odyssey of the Mind. The team met bi-weekly for 4-10 hours, for 10 weeks, from January to March, to prepare for the competition.

click here to visit the team’s solution page.
click here to learn more about the Pandora’s Box problem.

Paul Fitzgerald ran a Math Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools (MOEMS) team for 30+ kids from 8 different schools. The team met monthly for five months, from November to March.

2015-2016
FLL
The Green Mountain Gears won the 2015 Vermont Regional Championships at Norwich College among 33 teams from across Vermont. The team was invited to the North American Championships in California and Arkansas. The team was also nominated for the Global Innovations Award and qualified for semi-finals among 24,000 teams in 23 countries. The team developed an app, Sorta Scrappy, to help people learn to sort their waste properly. The app a free download on the iTunes store and Google Play store. The team made original art work in Anime Studio. The team used Photoshop to modify artwork to make backgrounds. The team wrote original music. The team modified existing Unity Pro tutorials to code the game in C#. The team presented their game at the Champlain Valley Mini-Maker Faire, where the team surveyed 70+ people on their attitudes toward the game. The team also tested their game at the Mater Christ School.

Click here to see the team’s solution page.
Click here to read about the Global Innovations Award in The Other Paper.
Click here to see Sorta Scrappy in the iTunes store.
Click here to learn more about the Trask Trek Challenge from FLL.

FTC

Most of these kids competed as the Green Mountain Gears FTC team at the Vermont State Championships in FTC. The team made a transition from a lego based robot platform to a Tetrix Based platform. The team used Android Studio to code teleop programs in C#. The team met for nearly 40 hours over the December and February school vacations.

Click here to see team’s solution page.
Click here to see the challenge document for ResQ

Most of these kids represented the Fredrick H Tuttle Middle School in Division II at the Vermont State Championships for Odyssey of the Mind where the team earned a perfect score and won State Championship in problem II, Aesop’s Fables. The team met bi-weekly for 4-10 hours, for 10 weeks, from January to March, to prepare for the competition. The team was invited to the World Championships in Ames, Iowa.

Click here to see team’s solution page.
Click here to see article about team in The Other Paper.
Click here to see challenge info about Problem III Aesop Gone Viral.