Robotics: It's Not Just For Scientists, There's a Woodinville League

If you or your child loves science, plays with LEGOs, likes robotics or wants to learn how to program then you should know about FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology).

FIRST is a non-profit organization designed to get children excited about science and technology and teach them valuable employment and life skills. FIRST has programs for all ages, including Jr. FLL (ages 6-9), FLL (ages 9-14), FTC and FRC (both for high school). You can come and learn about all of these programs at the Woodinville library on Sunday August 19th from 2-4pm.

I started a FIRST Lego League (FLL) team when I was nine years old and have been on it for the past five years. We got together with other homeschool kids and met up weekly at my house with my uncle being the coach. There are teams though schools, girl-scouts, boy-scouts and 4-H clubs. FLL starts in September and normally ends in December. Of course if you win the regional competition you keep going until April.

In FLL the children get to do most of the work, and the work includes programming a LEGO robot to score points on the game mat and creating an innovative solution to a problem as part of their project. In addition, FIRST places a lot of emphasis on the Core Values. The Core Values are things like good sportsmanship, gracious professionalism and cooperation.

The FLL team I've been on didn't have specific people for specific things. It's true that some people were better at the programing, or the building, but we always made sure everyone had a turn to learn everything. My strength was the programming, and my weakness was the building. Even though I struggled with the building, I still learned why some designs work and some fail and why we need different designs, or arms for different challenges.

The MINDSTORMS NXT software allows you to drag and drop in order to program the robot. With that basic knowledge in programming I learned how to get the robots to do what I wanted them to do, even if it took a few (million) tries. 

In addition to designing and programming a robot to meet specific challenges, the teams are required to complete a research project on the topic of the year. The goal of these projects is to get you thinking and to use technology to assist in making the real world a better place. For these projects you can use an existing idea, or an original idea which the judges like better. The presentation of these projects are followed by a brief question and answer session typically about five minutes each. Some of the projects we have done over the years include Food Factor, Body Forward and Power Puzzle. The project is worth a third of the teams final mark.

FLL is really special to me because it has taught me so much about science and teamwork. Since were on the team together for five years the kids that I’ve grown up doing FLL with are like brothers to me. And though sometimes its annoying to work with brothers, we always support each other in the end. In FLL we learn how to think quickly and solve problems on the go. I don't remember a tournament that we didn't have to correct a program, or fix an arm quickly. Our robot is very temperamental, so there was always a problem that we had to fix.

I view the tournament (and I'm going to steal my coach's words here) as a celebration at the end of the process of learning. It doesn't matter if we do well or not, but it's the hours upon hours we spent working on the robot and project that counts.

I am looking forward to joining an FTC team next year. In FTC teams of up to 10 students are responsible for designing, building, and programming their robots. They form alliances and compete against other teams. FTC, like FLL tries to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders.

Did you know that there are over 20,000 FLL teams in over 61 countries in the world? Mind=blown. So come find out what all the fuss is about this Sunday afternoon at the Woodinville library!