THE SHORT VERSION Does your son or daughter like Lego? Do you want them to learn about science and technology, learn how to be part of a team, how to do research and present and how to get involved in their community ? If so, First Lego League (FLL) may be for you. For the past 5 years, I've coached an FLL team comprised of 3-8 home-school kids ages 9-14. *I've* learned a lot. I'm willing to run a "coaches workshop" to get others started on the journey. I will be running a workshop for perspective parents and kids at Fresta Valley Christian School on Tuesday, May 5 2009 at 7pm. We'll run last years robot and talk about what's involved in starting and coaching a team. RSVP requested. I'll keep the "meeting" to 1 hour and leave some time for people to talk/form potential teams. Fresta is located @ 6428 Wilson Rd, Marshall, VAý (Google Maps can be your friend). Warning: it takes longer than you think to get there. THE LONG VERSION What will the kids do ? They will design and build a robot using the Lego NXT kit. They will research an assigned engineering related problem and solutions and develop and give presentations. The "season" is 8 weeks during September and October. They will work on their robot, research and presentation during the season, and then compete in a regional tournament. The tournaments are kind of a cross between a science fair and a pep rally. The teams will be judged on four areas: Robot Performance (how well it does the assigned tasks on a 4'x8' playing field), Robot Design (how good was their design and programming), Presentation (research, presentation, community impact/involvement), and Teamwork. To give you a sample, over the past few years, our team has met with the board of elders at a local church to propose ways to make the building more accessible handicapped people, attended lectures on nano-technology, gotten tours of robotics labs, researched ways to make the local library more energy efficient, presented their findings to the library board and county supervisors, researched "dehydration at outdoor events", including talking to concert organizers and paramedics, developed various skits/presentations including two short "lego-mation" videos. Their efforts have been written up in the local papers several times. How much time will it take ? You get out what you put in. At a minimum, 2 meetings a week for 8 weeks + competing at "tournament". Things tend to get hectic towards the end when the robot breaks, nothing is working right, the presentation is not quite done, the team needs to practice running, etc. It's kind of like finals week for kids (not a bad skill to learn early). Who should be involved ? There are plywood tables and lighting fixtures to be built, gear-ratios to be explored, simple programming to be learned, science and engineering topics to be explored...good opportunities for dads to get involve. We have had one parent be "research coordinator", "presentation coordinator", admin/registration coordinator, treasurer, etc. In the end though, the kids are supposed to *do* the work themselves. What will it cost ? Our team of 6 spent $800 last year for registration fees, t-shirts, handouts, the "field pieces",etc. A new team might have to buy a Lego NXT robot kit (~$400, good for multiple years), build a table ($75), etc. What else will be needed ? A place to meet. A few computers. All the lego you can get your hands on (NO MEGABLOCKS !) Questions? Contact me, George Jones <[log in to unmask]> or 540 272 7468. FOR MORE INFO The FLL Homepage http://www.usfirst.org/firstlegoleague/community/homepage.html Some pictures and stories form this years "World Festival" in Atlanta: http://vadcfllatlanta08.blogspot.com/ A team blog from a few years ago http://botbrains2005.blogspot.com/ ______________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list". If you want to join the VADCFLL-ADMIN-L mailing list - to which FLL administrative announcements will be distributed - visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-admin-l.html and select "Join or leave the list".