This year, FRC Team 467: Center of Mass sponsored 16 FIRST LEGO League teams made up of students in 5th-8th grade. These FLL teams form a crucial part of our objective to promote STEM education.
We provided the teams with LEGO robotics kits for building their robot, as well as a place to meet and work. In addition to the kits, we make sure that the teams receive enough support. Experienced mentors, alumni, and high school students help our FLL teams in building, programming, and preparing their presentations.
Being on an FLL team is so much more than building robots, it’s learning valuable STEM skills including problem solving, critical thinking, and innovation. It also teaches teamwork, time management, and how to handle challenges, which are useful skills in everyday life.
It’s been awesome to see how much the students have learned and improved over the season. It is not just about robotics when supporting these teams, it is about showing them how much fun and rewarding STEM can be. Our main goal is to provide an entertaining, positive environment for students to learn, try, and build their skills.
These 16 FLL teams are currently preparing for their official competitions in late November and early December. To help them prepare, we held two mock tournaments; one on October 26 and one on November 17. Events started in the morning and lasted throughout the day. These events cover all the essential components of an official competition, including this year’s challenge and presentations.
Each team has an opportunity to showcase their robot and practice giving a presentation in front of judges. The volunteer judges give great feedback to the teams, highlighting areas of strength and potential growth.
For the robot challenge itself, teams went through preliminary qualifying rounds, determining rank for their elimination matches later in the day. Following their qualifying rounds, teams were placed into normal competition style brackets for the elimination rounds. This was a good opportunity for the teams to practice driving their robots in competition conditions and to learn how to handle the pressure of timed matches.
These mock competitions were a fun way to help these FLL teams get prepared for their real competitions later in the year.