FIRST LEGO League Fall 2004 Competition

Notice: In the Fall of 2004, The Los Altos Robotics Community organized to form Los Altos Robotics!  Los Altos Robotics is focused on bringing robotics to the children in our community and is doing so by helping teams form, coaches with coaching, team members and coaches with robotics, and by putting on competitions.  Learn more about these LosAltosRobotics.Org.

Introduction

I have also added a section for those interested in starting a team of their own.
 

2004 Season Results

• Here is a summary of the results (PDF file) for the November 20, 2004 Los Altos FIRST LEGO League Local Competition with the award winners, Northern CA State Competition qualifying teams, all of the scores, and more competition information.  Here is the full Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet used at the Local Competition with all of the scores.  Here is the Microsoft PowerPoint file used to make the certificates.  Feel free to use it to print out more certificates for your team.  Feel free to distribute the spreadsheet and PowerPoint files, to modify them, and use them for future events.
• Here is a summary of the results (winners, PDF file) and scores for the October 17, 2004 Los Altos Scrimmage.  Here is the full Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet used at the Scrimmage with all of the scores.  Here is the Microsoft PowerPoint file used to make the certificates.  Feel free to use it to print out more certificates for your team.  Feel free to distribute the spreadsheet, to modify it, and use it for future events.

Quick Index To my FLL pages

• This page: Description of FLL, Season Schedule,
• Los Altos Sign Up Page: Tells how to sign up for being on a Los Altos Community Team.
• FIRST LEGO League Simple Playing Field Design: Tells about how we have made a playing fields for the teams.
• FIRST LEGO League Teams and Kits: Tells about how you can start a team yourself, register and buy the materials, and own all of the materials at the end of the season or that you can register through me and use materials purchased in prior years and this year and maybe save some money in the short run.  Use which ever way of registration works best for you.  All Los Altos FLL teams are welcome to participate in the Los Altos Local Competitions.
• Michael Schuh's FLL Coach's Guide:  This page outlines my advice to new coaches.  I have coached one or two teams each year since my first FLL season in 1999.  I have developed a coaching style that works for me and I describe it in this page.
• FIRST LEGO League Common Email Questions: Answers to the common email questions that are sent to me.  I suggest checking here before emailing me a question.   You might quickly find your answer.

Brief Description of FLL

An extension of the High School Robotics Competition, FLL pairs an academic challenge with a sports-like playing field where kids invent independent robots. Using the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System, teams of students, teachers, engineers and parents receive a Challenge which is different every year. Each team is then responsible for the design, construction, programming, and testing of their robot to compete in the Challenge.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention Challenge Kit includes over 700 LEGO pieces, motors, light and touch sensors, gears, a CD-ROM including the RCX code programming environment, and an infared transmission tower to download the program directly into the robot.

The heart of the LEGO MINDSTORMS set is a micro-computer mounted inside a super-sized LEGO brick. This is called the RCX and is the brain for each invention.

The Registration Deadline is August 27, 2004:

Sign Up Information:  I need to know how many children in grades 4-8 (and 14 year olds) are interested and how many parents are interested in helping by volunteering their time and/or financial support.

• I am willing to lead the effort and lead my son's team.  There needs to be one or two adults per team.
• Cost is in the $125 to $200 per child range.  It cost about $140 in 2001 and 2002 and $150 in 2003.
• As long as there is enough parent support, we will form as many teams as needed to satisfy student interest.
• Please let me know of your and/or your children's interest by August 27 by email.   Read the sign up information and email the requested sign up information to Michael Schuh.  As many teams will be formed, as there are both children and parent volunteers to support.
• Once I have matched applicants with teams, I will ask parents on the teams to decide if they want me to provide them with kits that I have used in the past and take care of the finances or if they want to take care of their own kits, registration, and finances.  This is described in more detail on my Teams and Kits page.

Starting Your Own Team:

• First see if you have enough children interested to make a team.  A team costs from $300 to $900 for a season (see cost details below) and the more children you have the lower the cost per child.  I like having 4 children per team.  This allows the team to break into two groups of two to work on different parts of the challenge.  Larger teams start to compete for the computer and robot when they break into groups of two.  Engaged children are great participants and ones with nothing to do can be very disruptive.
• The program is designed for 4th through 8th graders.  We have found that the 4th graders have a harder time staying focused than the older children and can potentially get lost on a team.  However, if the child is interested and motivated, they can be a contributing member of the team and get a lot out of it.  We have also found that if possible it is good to make up teams with similar ages and skill levels.  Younger or less skilled children will not participate as much if there are other team members that overshadow them.  Don't worry about teams made up of younger and unexperienced children being able to do well in competition.  They may surprise you.  One of the Los Altos youngest, rookie teams made it to the playoffs in the Northern California competition.
• Find a coach.  The LEGO robot kit comes with a great training CD that I like to use to teach new team members how to program. Using this CD for training, the coach does not need to know much if anything about programming. I see that the main job of the coach is to schedule meetings, get all of the materials in place, and keep the teams on task.  When I coach, I try to help children overcome hurdles that they have been stuck on for an hour or so.  I encourage the children to take charge of the meetings and run them.  I make a few comments from time to time, but for the most part I stay out of the way.  I also try to get other parents to let the children do the work.  Let's face it, this robotics stuff is fun and it is hard for the parents to let the children have all the fun.  In 2001, I coached a team of five sixth grade children.  After a few meetings, they started rotating who would run the meeting as the team captain.  This worked well.  I did encourage them to lock down their design a few weeks before the tournaments and run their robot over and over again to sort out the bugs but alas, they had a hard time not making more than minor changes.  It wasn't until before the third competition event of the year that they embraced having three meetings of practice with only minor changes in the robot.  They were well served by this.  In 2002, I coached a team of six fourth graders.  They were not mature enough to run the meetings and worked best when they were in groups of two.  On or two other parents helped keep the team on task at all of the meetings.  Fourth graders require more attention than teams with older children.  While they did not make as much progress as teams made up of older children, they learned a lot and had a lot of fun.
• I have an expanded version of my coaching suggestions here.
• The Minnesota FIRST LEGO League has a wealth of resources for coaches and teams at their www.hightechkids.org/fll web site.  They have a email group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mnfll, for coaches that is very useful.  Previous messages are archived at this site.  New coaches can find lots of useful information at the Minnesota FIRST LEGO League web site.  A lot of the messages deal with Minnesota competition details and most of those can be skipped.  Other messages have some good information in them.
• Sometime between April and August, register your team at the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Web Site: http://www.usfirst.org/jrobtcs/flego.htm, and pay your money.  Your robot and playing field materials should arrive sometime in August.  The Challenge will be announced to all in early September.
• Schedule the team meetings and visit the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Web Site at www.legomindstorms.com/fll about once a week to keep informed.
• If you start a team in Los Altos, CA, send me email so I can keep you informed of local activities.
• Read everything on this page to learn more.

For More Information:

• Contact Michael Schuh, , 965-8037 Home, 604-1460 Work.
• One Page Overview - A quick overview of the FLL program details (PDF) file.
• FIRST LEGO League Los Altos Web Site: www.boardsailor.com/first.
• FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Web Site: www.legomindstorms.com/fll.  This is where you find out about the current competition and a little help for coaches.
• Contact FLL Team Support by E-mailing the FLL Teams Coordinators at fllteamsusfirst.org or by calling them at 1-800-871-8326 and selecting the Team Support Option.
• The Minnesota FIRST LEGO League has a wealth of resources for coaches and teams at their www.hightechkids.org/fll web site.  They have a email group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mnfll, for coaches that is very useful.  Previous messages are archived at this site.  New coaches can find lots of useful information at the Minnesota FIRST LEGO League web site.
• Robotics Learning is a Silicon Valley California volunteer organization that puts on LEGO Robotics Workshops for students and mentors.
• The FIRST LEGO League coaches and teams located in the South San Francisco Bay area (i.e. Silicon Valley) also have a email group with archives old messages at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SouthBayFLL.  This also talks about coaching issues and their local competitions.
• FLL 1999 Playing Field Images.
• FIRST Web Site: www.usfirst.org.  This where you can find out more information about FIRST and their high school competition.  Their web site sends you to www.legomindstorms.com/fll for information about the FIRST LEGO League.
• Skye Sweeney's FLL Page has a nice 52 page coaches guide and FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) pages.   The FAQ pages are not an official FIRST document. They are an accumulation of knowledge derived from six thousand messages posted to

the FLL forum over two seasons.  9/26/4.
• Scoring spreadsheet for Nov 3 scrimmage.

Frequently Asked Questions:

• What is the time commitment for the children and parents?

The time for the teams to meet will be decided by the team leader.  I anticipate that 4 to 6 hours per week should be enough to have fun and have a robot compete successfully in a competition event.  Each team will need one to two parents to coach and be at all meetings.  Multiple coaches can trade off to share the responsibility and fun.  It is expected that coaches will guide the children and help them make progress.  The goal is that the children should do the robot construction and programming.  We met Friday afternoons right after school and Sunday afternoons for 2.5 hours in the 2000 season.  The children loved it and looked forward to attending.
 
• My child wants to participate, but I don't know anything about robotics or programming.  How can I help?

If everyone helps a least some, this will be more fun for everyone.  You can help out by helping with organizing the groups, planning and helping with the local contests, making awards, judging, building the contest 8' X 8' playing field, and a variety of other tasks.  All help will be greatly appreciated.
 
• My 4^th grader is 9 years old and the age range says 9-14, can he participate?

We tried having 4^th graders on the teams and have found that they spend most of their time playing with the LEGOs.  I ask that they wait until they are in 5^th grade to join a team.  However, please talk to me if they are extremely talented and motivated and maybe we can find a way that they can participate.
 
• Why should we consider having two robots? The second one is called a prototyping set.

A prototyping set gives you the ability to build another robot to test different designs and programs, without destroying the robot you will be competing with.
 
• What are the cost details?

It costs $150 to register a team, $260 for a full robot kit, and about $100 for the playing field ($50 for the FLL kit and about $50 for the construction materials).  Participating in a competition should cost $25 to $100 per team.  T-shirts cost about $25 for each team member.  Add to this 6% shipping and your local tax rate and you have a rough idea of the cost.  Without the T-shirts, the cost is about $600 for a team to register, have one kit, and participate in a competition.  We divide the cost evenly between the team players.  You can save about $300 per team by using your own LEGO Mindstorms kit and add $300 if you want two kits.

Results From Previous Years

• Here is a summary of the results for the November 22, 2003 Los Altos Local Competition.  The full Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet used at the tournament with all of the scores is also available.  There is a lot of information to the right of the scores on the “Competition Scoring” worksheet.  The spreadsheet works fine if you open it with macros disabled.  Feel free to distribute the spreadsheet, to modify it, and use it for future events.  Thanks to Dan Fairfax for creating it.
• Here is a summary of the results for the December 14, 2002 Los Altos Local Competition.  The full Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet used at the tournament with all of the scores is also available.  There is a lot of information to the right of the scores on the “Competition Scoring” worksheet.  The spreadsheet works fine if you open it with macros disabled.  Feel free to distribute the spreadsheet, to modify it, and use it for future events.  Thanks to Dan Fairfax for creating it.

Changes Log:

This is the  visit to this page since 6 September 99.