FLL - FIRST LEGO League
FIRST LEGO League is a robotics program for 9 to 14 year olds, which is designed to get children excited about science and technology, and teach them valuable life skills.
Every September, FLL releases a Challenge, which is based on a real-world scientific topic. Each Challenge has three parts:
- The Robot Game: teams have to build and program an autonomous robot to score as many points as they can on a themed playing field during a 2.5 minute match.
- The Project: teams explore an actual problem that today’s scientists and engineers are trying to solve, develop an innovative solution, and share their findings with the community.
- The FLL Core Values: Participants learn that friendly competition and mutual gain are not separate goals, and that helping one another is the foundation of teamwork.
Teams can have up to ten children ages 9 to 14. They have about 10 weeks to work hard on the challenge, and may then choose to compete in an official tournament.
The 2014 FLL theme is “World Class”. Teams will redesign how we gather knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Teams will teach adults about the ways that kids need and want to learn. Teams will also build, test, and program an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS® to solve a set of missions in the robot game.
The 2013 FLL theme was “Nature's Fury”. Teams had to explore the awe-inspiring storms, quakes, waves and more that we call natural disasters. Teams had to discover what can be done when intense natural events meet the places people live, work, and play. Teams also built, tested, and programmed an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS® robot to solve a set of missions on an obstacle course.
We had 3 teams compete in the 2013 Nature's Fury challenge.
"Hackerz" won the "teamworks award" in the regional competition, and the "Innovation award" in the state for their well thought of and cost-effective idea to remove snow from roofs after a blizzard.
The "Angry Owls" won the "Judges award" at the regional competition for their fundraising effort to help Philippines typhoon victims.
Our young rookie team "Mindstormz Minionz" placed 7 out of 48 teams in the regional competition.
The 2012 FLL theme was “Senior Solutions”. Teams had to explore the topic of aging and how it may affect a person’s ability to maintain his or her lifestyle – solving issues like getting around, keeping in touch, or staying fit. Teams had to research obstacles and then suggest ways to improve the quality of life for the seniors affected.
"Angry Owls" competed in the 2012 Senior's solution challenge. They won first place in the regional competition elimination rounds, and were awarded the "Mechanical Design" award (mechanically sound robot that is durable, efficient and highly capable of performing challenge missions). The team advanced to the state championship and was placed 9 in the state.
Our rookie team the "Hackerz" placed 4th in the regional competition (highest scoring rookie team!) and were placed 19th in the state.
Read about the team’s success in the local papers.
Wayland News from 12/13/12
Westborough Patch from 12/15/12
The 2011 FLL theme was “Food Factor”. Teams had to research food safety. Food contamination can happen while the food is still in the ground, during harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, preparing, storing, or serving. Teams were asked to select a specific food item, research the process that this food goes through, identify a potential problem that can cause contamination, research existing solutions, then come up with their own innovative solution.
Our FLL team “Angry Owls” competed in the 2011 Food Factor challenge. They first competed in a regional competition and won the ‘Robot Performance Award’ (the team that scored the most points during the robot game), and the ‘Judge’s Award 1’ (the team that excelled in areas not included in other awards).
The team advanced to the state championship and was placed 13 in the state. They also received the Runner-up trophy for ‘Gracious Professionalism Award’ (a team whose members show each other and other teams respect at all times).
Good job ‘Angry Owls’!
Read about the team’s success in the local papers.
Framingham News from 12/13/11
Westborough News from 12/25/11