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I'm not sure, but my guess is too hot? It was our first attempt, we had a bit of a pain getting the extrusion to start. Suggestions?

ABS or PLA?

PLA

Looks like we're dead in the water. Hot end got plugged and the tip was too tight and stripped the acorn. PITA!!!!! Ordered a new hot end, but what can I do to keep this from happening? Seems like every third or so time I try something the filament expands inside the hot end and gets blocked. I finally got the heat correct and can't seem to time the filament going in and all that. How far are you guys putting the filament in and for how long before you start the print?

If your using PLA, you need a small fan pointed at the thermal break (the plastic body) of the Hotend to disturb the air around it.
I use a 40mm fan, I run it at 100% all of the time when printing PLA, when printing ABS I don't run it at all.
If you don't have one lying around you can just use a house fan blowing across the bed.
PLA gets soft long before it melts, and will mushroom inside the Hotend if the temperature inside the thermal break is not controlled, the bulk of the gain in temperature is through convection which is why the fan makes a big difference.

OHHHHH, That is exactly what it did! I have a fan that I can use, just need to look at some of the ones on here to figure out how to mount it.
I guess I got the ABS and PLA mixed up when I ordered. For some reason I thought it was the other way around, fan for ABS not PLA. I have new
parts on the way so I should be able to come up with a temporary fix for the fan until I ca make one.
Thanks,

I've adopted a policy of backing up the filament about 1/2" at the end of a print. This gets the end of the filament out of the heat zone so it doesn't just sit there and melt. i find this especially important with PLA. When doing this I have to remember to feed the filament forward before starting a print.

That's a really good idea. Might be a good addition to the ending g code in slic3r as well