From the build and coding of the robot, to the design and printing of our team t-shirts, that was all the kids’ responsibilities. “They are the ones that need to be creative, and let their imaginations turn to reality. “The kids really need to ‘own’ it,” notes Gutierrez. Though coaches can be experts, it’s the students who must create the robots. “We also had a guest speaker on our first day who went to the world championships.”
“One of our parents from our After-School Club actually used to work for FIRST, so he gave us a lot of insight,” says Gutierrez. The ‘Empowerers,’ led by Gutierrez and Empow Studios Founder Leonid Tunik, also had assistance from FLL veterans their first year. “We could not have done it without everyone’s help.” “We absolutely relied on parents and volunteers to help out,” adds Clark. “I was on FRC Team 20, ‘The Rocketeers’, in high school, and the team and my mentors are what inspired me to study engineering at college and to become a mentor once I graduated.” Clark was assisted during the season by fellow WPI graduate and former FRC competitor Zac Temple, along with one of the team members’ grandparents, Mike Hoeffler, a retired engineer. “We came up with starting a FLL team,” she says. Team coach and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) graduate Deanna Clark has a background in robotics, was mentoring a high school team and had been looking for potential outreach ideas. Temple’s school-based teams, one of which ended up with the 3rd highest score at the state competition, was fortunate to have three robotics veterans leading the group. The caveat is that it’s not simply a matter of having kids play with LEGOs. “One team was run by a family out of their home, another team was run by a Girl Scout group, and another team was part of a home-school group.” “We noticed at the first event that many FLL teams are run by families without a connection to a school,” she says. Cheryl Temple, who helped create a middle school team as a mentor and Assistant Principal of Florence Sawyer School (FSS) in Bolton, MA, points out the diversity among teams. LEGO® has purposely been inclusive in how teams form. One of the mottos is: ‘What we discover is more important than what we win.’ Come One, Come All The teams are guided by ‘Core Values,’ which emphasize having a fun, friendly competition, and cooperating as a team.
During the next couple of months, they will focus on programming their LEGO robots to complete the missions while creating one presentation per team that will focus on a real-world animal concern and an original solution. To start, teams put together their boards and create the LEGO objects that will make up the official course.
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This season’s theme is ‘ Animal Allies’ which involves completing a series of robotic tasks that center on animal welfare, such as moving a LEGO shark, working with a LEGO guide dog and placing a LEGO gecko on a ‘biomimicry wall.’ “The kids this year are really excited about the animal theme,” notes Gutierrez. “Our school had two teams and we did presentations on preventing plastic rings from harming animals and on nuclear waste,” says 12-year-old FLL competitor Hallie Farmer from Bolton, MA. The theme of the 2015-16 FLL season was ‘Trash Trek.’ The competition also involves a research project and team presentation that focuses on a real-world problem and an original solution. The autonomous robots are designed to complete missions, such as collecting rings and navigating obstacles within a 2.5 minute time frame. (ages 6-10) FLL for elementary and middle school age students, FIRST Tech Challenge (middle & high school), and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) for high school competitors.įLL competitions involve building a robot using a LEGO®MINDSTORMS® kit. “For our first FLL team, I’d say it was a big success.”
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“The kids went from not knowing how to code or design robots, to winning 1st place in the teamwork category of our qualifier,” adds Gutierrez. “All of the kids’ jaws dropped and they were in awe at how cool the event was,” marvels Dave Gutierrez, who co-coached a fledgling FLL team from Empow Studios, the ‘Empowerers,’ to a qualifying event last season in Lawrence, MA. As energetic music pumps through the venue, it’s like watching a beehive, with various competitions happening simultaneously and competitors circling around tables with fists pumping as they nervously watch their robot complete various tasks. Collaboration is key to successful FIRST LEGO League seasonĪttending a FIRST LEGO League (FLL) robotics competition is exciting.
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