Heather Idoni of HomeschoolingBOYS.com

Nov. 20, 2006 - Lego Robotics Competition!

This past Saturday was our regional tournament for First Lego League
robotics.... wow, what a fun day! Our club has 3 homeschool teams
this year, 2 boys' teams and an all-girls' team. Out of a little over
30 competing teams, all 3 of our teams won spots in the top 12 and will
be going on to our state competition on December 16th.

If you are not familiar with FLL or Lego Robotics, I'll give you a
little summary here. First of all, it is great for homeschoolers! We
touch on many different elements in a very hands-on way -- programming,
physics, trial-and-error, research, project development, statistics,
public speaking, teamwork, creativity, perserverance, compromise,
fine motor skills, troubleshooting -- the list goes on!

FLL is for children ages 9 to 14. It is considered the 'little league'
of robotics competitions. But, as I found out, it is FAR from easy!

The majority of the points you earn at competition come from running
your robot base with an on-board program (autonomously) that makes
it perform several tasks with different attachments that have to be
quickly changed out in order to accomplish as many tasks as possible
in the time allowed. It is hard to describe that in a nutshell, but
I'll include some websites at the end of this article for you to find
out more!

Your team also earns points for demonstrating team work with a project
that is unknown until you enter a room with some judges. The project
my boys had 'sprung' on them (I have 3 boys on one of the teams!) was
to build a bridge out of Legos that could support a bottle of water.
They had 8 minutes to complete the task! I was very proud of them. They
finished the bridge successfully and they all gave input into solving
the problem, demonstrating kindness and politeness the whole time. That
was a LONG 8 minutes!! You try getting 8 boys together and seeing if
they can agree on ANYTHING for that long, especially when some of
them are siblings. ;-) If they had been even slightly rude or disagreed
about something (what is wrong with disagreeing - I don't know!) they
would have gotten ZERO points for that segment. I was so proud of them!

Points were also awarded for the boys being able to demonstrate that
they understood the physics of their robot design and the programming.
They also were to research and develop a project related to the theme
for this year, which is Nanotechnology. (Last year was 'Ocean Odyssey'.)

I helped out with the research project. We probably put over 40 hours
into it! First the boys had to decide what to research. Out of ten or
so different nanotech products we looked at, they settled on liquid body
armor. Half the project was presenting the research we had done...
and the other half was identifying a problem and designing a solution
or improvement. The boys did a fantastic job! We even surprised
the judges at the end with a funny short video had created. :-)

The initial investment for sponsoring FLL teams is pretty big... you
need computers and the robotics equipment. But it is pretty easy to
get corporate sponsors, especially technology companies who are
interested in promoting science and technology among youth.

One incredibly devoted homeschool dad, Doug Auxier, mentored all
3 of our teams with help from another homeschool dad, Charlie Rice.

Doug's lovely wife, Melissa, graciously opened their home to get
completely overrun with about 40 people twice a week the past few
months. She is superwoman!! (((((Melissa)))))

Here is our club's website. My sons were on the Nanonians' team,
an all-rookie team this year. http://rclahs.com/

Here is the main FLL site, where you can learn lots more about it:
http://www.usfirst.org/jrobtcs/flego.htm

Wondering what nanotechnology is? Here is a website you can
explore with your children: http://www.nanozone.org/

homeschooling home education home school lego robotics science education first lego league

About Me

Heather Idoni of Beloved Books, editor of "The Homeschooler's Notebook" ezine and founder of HomeschoolingBOYS.com, mom to 5 boys (and a new baby due in February '08!), married 20.5 years to the love of her life in the wilds of Michigan.