Jr. Lego Leauge?

[bry's-gal]

Has anyone done this? Thoughts? Time commitment? Cost? Good? Bad?

 

We are thinking of having our oldest daughter start the Jr. Lego League this fall but we haven't found anyone who has done the younger age! Thanks!

[annlaura]

:bigear:

[zenjenn]

We are going to an informational meeting tomorrow at the science center about this. I have a 1st grader and a 3rd grader. I'll let you know what I learn tomorrow if no one else has offered a good response by then.

[black_midori]

I'd have to let you know in a month or two - my 7yo is starting it in September, and we are having the first scheduling meeting this month sometime...

 

I did just find out that apparently the JR league doesn't do robots??? I'm a little concerned - that would be his favorite part (although he likes Legos as well) - so we'll have to see how it goes.

[scrappyhappymama]

Our son did it last year and he LOVED it. It is very low key, compared to the FLL, but great for the younger kids. There's a theme for the year and each team comes up with an idea to support the theme.

 

Last year's was healthcare technology and the team my son was on choose Xrays. The kids learn about the technology and then build a lego model. Each team makes a poster board showing what they learned and the progress of their prototype. Then they show their project at a Jr FLL "contest" but it's really mostly non-competitive at this level. Judges came to each group's display and so there was an opportunity to present to them. There were a few awards at the end, but that really wasn't the focus so much for the Jr level and there's no higher level contests. Some of the team's projects were more elaborate and involved automated parts and others were simpler and had mechanical moving parts only. The Jr contest we attended was held at the same time as an FLL district level competition, so after the Jr part was over, we were able to watch some of the FLL robots and that was fun and inspiring for the younger ones too.

 

Overall, it was a really good experience and we hope to find another group to join this fall (we're in the process of moving). I think the theme this year has to do with nutrition.

[bry's-gal]

Scraphappy- Thanks for all of the info- that was very helpful! Do you remember about how much time a week was spent on it?

 

I would love to hear from others!

[Lady Florida.]

My son did this when he was 9, and loved it! He never went on to FLL because he wasn't interested in robotics. He just wanted to build with Lego. :D

 

Our situation might not give a true picture of what it's like. We were four families who were friends, and had formed a co-op. Though I was officially listed as team leader, all of us moms took on leadership roles. Our kids were used to playing and working together. IIRC, we spent about 3 hours a week - 1-1/2 hours twice a week, and we met at my house. We did though, give each child an assignment for the project to be done outside of the meeting times. And we took a trip to The Lego Store in Downtown Disney to get extra bricks and talk to one of the builders there.

 

Our team consisted of 5 boys. They won a few awards, learned something about the subject, learned about teamwork, and best of all had fun. Some of the boys went on to compete in FLL on other teams.

 

It's fun and low stress. If your daughter is interested in moving on to FLL, Junior FLL will give her an idea of what's ahead. And even if she doesn't do FLL, the experience should be fun.