Our kids are a bit younger (4^th and 5^th grade – Two girls and four boys).  We split up into three teams of 2, and they each took responsibility for an aspect of the game.  We only have one bot and one laptop, so they simply took turns.  When they were not programming, they were either brainstorming or working on the research project.  That seemed to work well because each sub-team had ownership in a section, which seemed to help them focus.  Now, don’t read this to seem like we had three distinct teams that never shared…there was a gob of cross talking and sharing of ideas, but when it came to the programming, attachments and such, each sub-team had to agree to be responsible for their piece.

 

Good Luck!

 

-Frank

 

 

This is a general question for the LL community: This is my fourth year coaching a LL team (two as JFLL, second as FLL).  This year, I have six 6^th grade boys.  They are at varying stages of focusing abilities and interest in the tasks at hand.  (Typical boys of their age!.)  Any suggestions on how to get the most out of the season?  Last year, we used 3 ‘bots and three lap tops and that seemed to be too all-over-the-place.  I am going to try 2 ‘bots and ‘2 laptops this year (then we combine everything into 1 ‘bot).  Any thoughts on how to divide kids/tasks/etc…?