First Lego League - cross post from General Board

[JeanM]

My dc have done some lego robotics through 4H, but have never done First Lego League. Can anyone give me an idea of how many hours per week your group meets? How much time do your dc spend on FLL outside of the group meetings?

 

Does your group spend as much time on the research project as on the robotics?

 

Oh, and if you have an opinion on the ideal group size, I'd love to know that too.

 

Thanks!

[zenjenn]

Last year was our first year participating.

 

They met 2 hrs a week most of the season, and then the last couple weeks it was more like 5 hrs a week. We did not spend a huge amount of time on the project. The competition is in December so it is a one-semester commitment.

 

I have to say though, our team was very middle-of-the-road, and we had some of the youngest FLL students (mostly 4th graders), all first-time participants. Our regional competition was about 30-something teams and our team ranked 17th. Winning teams clearly invested a lot more time. But, our team had a ton of fun and learned in the process.

Edited June 26, 2012 by zenjenn

[JeanM]

Last year was our first year participating.

 

They met 2 hrs a week most of the season, and then the last couple weeks it was more like 5 hrs a week. We did not spend a huge amount of time on the project. The competition is in December so it is a one-semester commitment.

 

I have to say though, our team was very middle-of-the-road, and we had some of the youngest FLL students (mostly 4th graders), all first-time participants. Our regional competition was about 30-something teams and our team ranked 17th. Winning teams clearly invested a lot more time. But, our team had a ton of fun and learned in the process.

 

Thanks, that is very helpful. I'm glad to hear that it was a good experience.

[angela in ohio]

My dc have done a few years, and I am starting a team this coming year for younger ds and friends. My olders do VEX and FIRST Robotics, so we are heavily involved in robotics. :D It's excellent!

 

Last year, the team was 5 kiddos. They spent 4-6 hours per week up until the last few weeks, then it was more. They worked hard on both the robotics aspect and the teamwork/presentation/research aspect. They continued practicing between their regional and state competition for several hours a week. The students did all of the building and programming, which takes time.

 

I think the ideal size is 5-6 students.

[JeanM]

Thanks! That's very helpful. I need to talk to my dc when they get back from camp and make a plan. It sounds like most people really have smaller teams than the maximum of 10, which sounds good to me. Ten kids is a lot to coordinate.

 

 

 

My dc have done a few years, and I am starting a team this coming year for younger ds and friends. My olders do VEX and FIRST Robotics, so we are heavily involved in robotics. :D It's excellent!

 

Last year, the team was 5 kiddos. They spent 4-6 hours per week up until the last few weeks, then it was more. They worked hard on both the robotics aspect and the teamwork/presentation/research aspect. They continued practicing between their regional and state competition for several hours a week. The students did all of the building and programming, which takes time.

 

I think the ideal size is 5-6 students.

[Old Dominion Heather]

We have done FLL for the last three years and this year is the first year we may not have a team. The local competition is great, lots of teams, kids doing the work (for the most part)... and most of the teams at the state competition are the same way... but not the teams that win. The teams that win have FAR more adult involvement. Our kids last year had spend a huge amount of time on their project and it was very well done. They came away frustrated because they were marked down because (and this is a written quote from a state level judge) their "project book was not word processed." This was in the younger division, not older. The kids had made up an organized book of their brainstorming notes, research, etc... and it was all handwritten, legible and age appropriate. They could not have word processed that and I have a hard time believing that any of the teams could have managed that unless it was done by a parent. The winning team had a word processed project book that was 700 (!) pages long. For real. AND they were 9-11 year olds. It had clearly been put together by an adult.

 

Another team who won for robot design was in the practice area of the competition. Three adult men were running the robot and making programming changes. Their team of mostly 9-10 yos were actually told by these "coaches" (and I heard this myself) "get back from the table and do NOT touch it. You can watch."

 

Our team left feeling that they had worked their butts off, but didn't realize til they got to the competition that they would be competing against adult engineers. They were frustrated and we adults were as well.

[JeanM]

We have done FLL for the last three years and this year is the first year we may not have a team. The local competition is great, lots of teams, kids doing the work (for the most part)... and most of the teams at the state competition are the same way... but not the teams that win. The teams that win have FAR more adult involvement. Our kids last year had spend a huge amount of time on their project and it was very well done. They came away frustrated because they were marked down because (and this is a written quote from a state level judge) their "project book was not word processed." This was in the younger division, not older. The kids had made up an organized book of their brainstorming notes, research, etc... and it was all handwritten, legible and age appropriate. They could not have word processed that and I have a hard time believing that any of the teams could have managed that unless it was done by a parent. The winning team had a word processed project book that was 700 (!) pages long. For real. AND they were 9-11 year olds. It had clearly been put together by an adult.

 

Another team who won for robot design was in the practice area of the competition. Three adult men were running the robot and making programming changes. Their team of mostly 9-10 yos were actually told by these "coaches" (and I heard this myself) "get back from the table and do NOT touch it. You can watch."

 

Our team left feeling that they had worked their butts off, but didn't realize til they got to the competition that they would be competing against adult engineers. They were frustrated and we adults were as well.

 

Wow, that is terrible. I wish there were a way for the judges to tell who had done the work.

[FairProspects]

We have done FLL for the last three years and this year is the first year we may not have a team. The local competition is great, lots of teams, kids doing the work (for the most part)... and most of the teams at the state competition are the same way... but not the teams that win. The teams that win have FAR more adult involvement. Our kids last year had spend a huge amount of time on their project and it was very well done. They came away frustrated because they were marked down because (and this is a written quote from a state level judge) their "project book was not word processed." This was in the younger division, not older. The kids had made up an organized book of their brainstorming notes, research, etc... and it was all handwritten, legible and age appropriate. They could not have word processed that and I have a hard time believing that any of the teams could have managed that unless it was done by a parent. The winning team had a word processed project book that was 700 (!) pages long. For real. AND they were 9-11 year olds. It had clearly been put together by an adult.

 

Another team who won for robot design was in the practice area of the competition. Three adult men were running the robot and making programming changes. Their team of mostly 9-10 yos were actually told by these "coaches" (and I heard this myself) "get back from the table and do NOT touch it. You can watch."

 

Our team left feeling that they had worked their butts off, but didn't realize til they got to the competition that they would be competing against adult engineers. They were frustrated and we adults were as well.

 

I'm concerned about this as well. I've heard it happens in our area too, and is one of the reasons that ds's current Robotics club placed low last year. I'm considering putting together a team, but I might just let him go to competition with his team and get a feel for the whole experience.

[angela in ohio]

Wow, that is terrible. I wish there were a way for the judges to tell who had done the work.

 

In our experience, in our state (Ohio the past three years,) the judges were able to tell. We received compliments about how obvious it was that our students had really done the work. They even marked them down for something they thought adults had done (they hadn't, but we had some really, really smart 8th graders on the team.) That was funny, considering the team mentor is a Chinese major with no technical skills whatsoever. :lol: The kiddos were a bit unhappy with that comment, but they understood why they watch it so closely.

 

The good thing about FLL is that the judges talk to the students, so they get to see what the students know. Yes, there are amazing teams, but there are also students that can back up what they did. We got to see some FLL teams at the World Championship in St. Louis, and they were great!

 

FLL has really stepped up in the last few years, to keep pace with (1.) what is happening in schools, and (2.) FIRST.

[JeanM]

In our experience, in our state (Ohio the past three years,) the judges were able to tell.

 

That's very encouraging. And kudos to all of the kids who are doing things themselves!

[WVNA]

My dc have done some lego robotics through 4H, but have never done First Lego League. Can anyone give me an idea of how many hours per week your group meets? How much time do your dc spend on FLL outside of the group meetings?

 

Does your group spend as much time on the research project as on the robotics?

 

Oh, and if you have an opinion on the ideal group size, I'd love to know that too.

 

Thanks!

 

I coached a FLL team last year(and will again this fall) for a group of homeschooled kids. We met for about 1.5 - 2 hours during the week. About two or three times per month, the local high school robotics team would also hold sessions where they helped out FLL teams. Those sessions lasted 2 hours so we ended up spending anywhere from 1.5 - 4 hours a week.

 

You may also want to see the discussion of meeting times here - http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=19194.

 

Work done outside the meetings varied. They did work on the research project, but we folded that into their science curriculum. They also did some robotics work outside of the group meetings too, but that was just them playing around and wasn't required.

 

We should have spent more time on the research project and we fell behind with it because of that. I'm making some changes for the fall so that it hopefully won't happen again.

 

I think the ideal group size is a bit dependent on the kids you have and their ages/abilities. I do think 10 is definitely too much. I'd say an ideal number is somewhere in the 5-8 range.

 

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[KarenNC]

We were on a team two years ago. There were 10 kids ranging in age from 9-12 of wildly varying ability/experience/interest in robotics--only one had been on a team like this before. The coach worked herself to death and did a great job with what she had to work with (we actually went to state competition, astonishingly), but she was coming from an experience of a team of 3 kids of the same age with similar degrees of interest and ability. Very different situation. In retrospect, the team was too large, and the age and ability/interest range too great (and my child was one of the youngest and least interested, unfortunately--I should have waited until she was older or skipped it altogether). It turned into a situation where only a couple of the older kids actually got much experience with the robot, while the others were doing the skit, etc. That led to disgruntled parents who had expected all the kids to gain robotics experience.

 

There are a couple of other things to note that I haven't seen mentioned. In our state, the competition is LOUD. They had a DJ with pounding technopop blaring in a gymnasium throughout the competition, with 8 or so teams on the floor at a time. Luckily, our coach expected that and made a mix tape of loud music to play while the team practiced, just to get them used to working under those conditions. We switched to Science Olympiad for the last two years and the competition conditions are night and day. Also, be prepared to have little things to hand out to other teams at the competition. We had small frisbees from Oriental Trading that we put our team name on, other teams had things like Lego-shaped soaps stuck on cards with some sort of slogan, buttons with their team names on them, etc. It's important to include that in your budgeting for the year.

[brownie]

The team put in about 6 hrs a week in our first year of competition (last year). My oldest son put in extra on the side for sure. They came in 4th overall at a competition that submits the top team to nationals. It was a lot of work and I wouldn't personally take more than 4 kids on without an assistant coach unless they are at the older end of the range and independent, motivated workers. Even on the coaches call they recommended a coach for every 3 kids. Plus supplies become an issue. We had 2 laptops and 2 robots so the kids got a lot of hands on time...no waiting around for a turn. On the other hand you really need 3-4 kids to get all the work done. More would be ideal if you could get an assistant.

 

Brownie

[JeanM]

There are a couple of other things to note that I haven't seen mentioned. In our state, the competition is LOUD. They had a DJ with pounding technopop blaring in a gymnasium throughout the competition, with 8 or so teams on the floor at a time. Luckily, our coach expected that and made a mix tape of loud music to play while the team practiced, just to get them used to working under those conditions. We switched to Science Olympiad for the last two years and the competition conditions are night and day. Also, be prepared to have little things to hand out to other teams at the competition. We had small frisbees from Oriental Trading that we put our team name on, other teams had things like Lego-shaped soaps stuck on cards with some sort of slogan, buttons with their team names on them, etc. It's important to include that in your budgeting for the year.

 

That is good to know - yet another expense to consider! I wonder if that is true for all states?

 

My dc still say they want to do this. Now we just need to figure out who else to add to the team. After reading the replies so far here, we're thinking about just working with one or two other families. With just two or three families, I think scheduling will be easier.

 

Thanks to everyone who has replied so far, and more info is always welcome!

[angela in ohio]

That is good to know - yet another expense to consider! I wonder if that is true for all states?

 

In Ohio and Michigan competitions, there are sometimes trinkets for the judges, but usually the only thing passed out to other teams is a piece of candy. For example, our team researched raspberry packaging, so they had some raspberry candies for the judges, nd they handed out Smarties to the other competitors. The buttons and such for other teams don't start until FIRST (high school level,) and even then, they are optional.

 

The competitions are usually loud here, too. They are meant to be like sporting events (the whole idea is that robotics teams are just as important and fun to watch as sports teams,) so there is "youthful" music, and they play a lot of dance songs (along with "Sweet, Caroline," for some reason :lol:.) At the high school level, it is much louder, and the teams are often dancing up and down the aisles. It is like one big party the whole weekend, and that is new to most rookies. :D The FLL level is not so much like that, because there is less audience and teams are rotating into judging.

[KarenNC]

In Ohio and Michigan competitions, there are sometimes trinkets for the judges, but usually the only thing passed out to other teams is a piece of candy. For example, our team researched raspberry packaging, so they had some raspberry candies for the judges, nd they handed out Smarties to the other competitors. The buttons and such for other teams don't start until FIRST (high school level,) and even then, they are optional.

 

The competitions are usually loud here, too. They are meant to be like sporting events (the whole idea is that robotics teams are just as important and fun to watch as sports teams,) so there is "youthful" music, and they play a lot of dance songs (along with "Sweet, Caroline," for some reason :lol:.) At the high school level, it is much louder, and the teams are often dancing up and down the aisles. It is like one big party the whole weekend, and that is new to most rookies. :D The FLL level is not so much like that, because there is less audience and teams are rotating into judging.

 

Our only experience was with the FLL, so ages 9-14(?--I forget the upper limit). I can't imagine it getting any louder!

 

Other budget items and considerations: team t-shirts, if you make it to state level there's another registration fee for that tournament, any travel expenses if the competition at either level isn't in your city, who's going to make the table and where's it going to be stored/transported if the group is not meeting at a specific house consistently. We weren't required to take a table to competition, but I think our coach did and maybe got a discount on registration for the tournament? Also be prepared to provide at least one adult volunteer to work at the competition--can't be the coach since the volunteer won't be with your kids. The competition is an all-day thing, so make sure the kids come prepared to occupy themselves for some downtime and have snacks, drinks, etc.

Edited July 3, 2012 by KarenNC

[JeanM]

Thanks Karen & Angela! Great info. I believe our state does not have regional competitions - everyone goes to the state competition. One of the benefits of a low-population state :001_smile:.

 

I'll warn my dc about the music. They love music, but they really hate loud pop music. I'm having trouble envisioning this as a sports-like event.

[daijobu]

The teams that win have FAR more adult involvement. Our kids last year had spend a huge amount of time on their project and it was very well done.

 

 

I should add that this isn't the case in all areas. We are in Northern California, and there was one team that blew everyone else away in the robot competition. It was a big team with a huge contingent of parents there. But they didn't advance to the next level of competition. We were shocked and speculating on where they failed. Was it the project? Was there too much parental involvment? While I didn't directly observe parental involvement, I wouldn't put it past them.

 

I agree that it is loud, but our concern is about hearing damage (due to dh having tinnitus). I am in the habit of carrying ear protection in my purse for these sorts of events, not just FLL where amplified sound is present.

[daijobu]

It turned into a situation where only a couple of the older kids actually got much experience with the robot, while the others were doing the skit, etc. That led to disgruntled parents who had expected all the kids to gain robotics experience.

 

 

 

When I signed up to coach for FLL, I thought it was a robotics competition. I had no idea I was also signing up for a science fair and a skit. I just felt like there were too many things going on apart from robot building. I think successful teams are large and delegate the different jobs to different students. But I had a team with just 3 kids, so everyone got to have a role in every aspect of FLL. I thought they had a richer experience, but it was more work and we didn't advance.

 

Does anyone else (besides me) that FLL should really be about the robot competition and the other stuff just dilutes the effort?

[angela in ohio]

Does anyone else (besides me) that FLL should really be about the robot competition and the other stuff just dilutes the effort?

 

No, because that isn't the mission of FIRST. There are other "robot-only" competitions (RoboFest, VEX, etc.,) and those would be a better fit for those who only want that aspect. The robot in FLL is only part of the program, along with team-building, cooperation, speaking skills, research skills, etc.

 

Our team used full participation from all of the kiddos in all areas, and it was great. It is a lot of work, but it's not a full-year commitment. My dc can build with the NXT at home. I'm so grateful that my 9 yo was being interviewed by judges, that my 13 yo learned that she could email national organizations and have them take her ideas seriously, that they have learned to complete a major research project with a group, that they will come in with the skills they need to succeed in FIRST (which has led to some amazing opportunities for my older dd,) and so on.

 

That said, in Michigan, the teams concentrate a lot more on the robots than on the other areas (unlike Ohio.) So I think the balance varies from state to state.

[FairProspects]

No, because that isn't the mission of FIRST. There are other "robot-only" competitions (RoboFest, VEX, etc.,) and those would be a better fit for those who only want that aspect. The robot in FLL is only part of the program, along with team-building, cooperation, speaking skills, research skills, etc.

 

Our team used full participation from all of the kiddos in all areas, and it was great. It is a lot of work, but it's not a full-year commitment. My dc can build with the NXT at home. I'm so grateful that my 9 yo was being interviewed by judges, that my 13 yo learned that she could email national organizations and have them take her ideas seriously, that they have learned to complete a major research project with a group, that they will come in with the skills they need to succeed in FIRST (which has led to some amazing opportunities for my older dd,) and so on.

 

That said, in Michigan, the teams concentrate a lot more on the robots than on the other areas (unlike Ohio.) So I think the balance varies from state to state.

 

Interesting. So maybe I really do want to let ds do FLL with his club this year and feel it out. I'm not sure he would like this style of competition at all. Maybe we will head more in the Vex direction long term. Although he could surprise me, I seriously doubt he would enjoy the skit/speech aspect/science fair aspect. Thanks for the info!

[brownie]

The project was an awesome experience for my kids, but I found it actually required more maturity to be successful than the robot competition. On the other hand, it is just too much work all at once. I wish they would do the project in the fall (they could mandate participation to do the robotics competition) and then robot in the winter :) It's all worthwhile, just a lot to take on. For this reason, we may not do FLL this year even though I think it is the most valuable single thing we've ever done.

 

Brownie