Hi Everyone,
Please allow me to address this subject if I may. This is my personal opinion and in no way an
official response or a view of FIRST nor FLL.
With over 20,000 teams in over 70 countries, FLL has grown
into an international phenomenon. Please
don’t forget that FIRST was founded by Dean Kamen. He is truly a very smart man, and we can only
assume that he has surrounded himself with some very bright people to help manage
FIRST and FLL. As such, we can be assure
that they must have seen these issues and made adjustment to FLL over the years
to deal with them. FLL takes adult
intervention very seriously, and as such on the very first page of the coaches’
handbook after the FLL’s Core Values is the Coaches’ Promise #2 of “The children
do the work.” Adult coaches and mentors
are guides, helping the kids find the answers.
FLL judges at regional and champion tournaments are very wary of teams
where adults are overly involved, and will ask questions to determine if the
children did the work themselves.
In the early years, FLL Champion’s Awards were based on four
criteria 1) Robot Design, 2) Project Presentation, 3) Teamwork, and 4) Robot
Performance with each represented a 25% (or ¼) weight value. Approximately 4 years ago, FLL Champion’s Awards
were changed to base only on the three core judged areas of 1) Robot Design, 2)
Project Presentation, and 3) Teamwork with a special criterion that the team
has to be among the top 40% score at their regional tournament to receive
Champion’s Awards.
Many people thought that this was a bad move since the kids were
attracted to FLL because of the robot games, and if we reduced the important of
winning the Robot Performance that it would ruin the whole concept of FLL. However,
more kids and teams continue to compete at FLL events every year since. In addition, if we take a careful look at the
reason for FLL making the change four year ago, it might answer some of these
questions that have been raised. First,
if there was any adult intervention in helping with the design and programming
of the robot, a team can get a very high score at the robot game and maybe even
winning the Robot Performance award but still might not win Champion’s Award to
advance to State. The kids will have to
do very well in all three judging areas to advance to State. This is where a team is judged by three
different set of judges on three different rubrics criteria. In FLL, the children are expected to do the
work. If there are any adult
interventions, it more likely will surface during one of the three judged
sessions. Judges are trained both to
give any benefit of the doubt to the children and to recognize an overabundance
of adult participation. A team’s
inability to answer questions, or to make robot adjustments without the direct
assistance of an adult, will be evident and will impact award eligibility.
Second, as a team mature and grow into division-II, the
children quickly realize that the path to State is more than just winning the
Robot Performance award, but to win in all three core judging areas. This might explain why the older kids put more
emphasis on winning Robot Design, Project Presentation, and Teamwork rather than
focusing in getting that perfect score on the table games. This also might help to clarify why the
division-I with younger (and rookie) teams might get much higher robot
performance scores than those in division-II.
It makes sense since the younger kids are drawn to FLL because of the
Lego robot -- and winning the Robot Performance award is much more important to
them than working on a research project to solve a real world problem!
In summary, I would like to remind everyone to keep the
children in mind. The most important
thing for you to know about an FLL tournament is that it is supposed to be FUN!
FIRST’s mission is to get children
excited about science and technology. Also
remember that these are children who worked hard all season to make it to the tournament.
Treat their accomplishments and their
work with respect, and be sure that other does as well. One negative comment from an adult can have a
devastating effect on a team and the children.
I hope that these might answer some of those tough questions that you
might have.
Remember “What we
discover is more important that what we win.”
Best wishes,
T. (Curt) Tran
Judges Advisor, GMU
Regional ’11, ’12 & ’13
Judges Advisor, TJHSST Regional
’09
Mentor Team #5390, Kilmer-I
’09
Mentor Team #8941,
Kilmer-II ’09
Coach Team #324, Scitobor
’08
Coach Team #3563, Rabid
Llama Lords ’07
P.S. If you and your team are done with your regional
tournament, please consider volunteering for one the remaining tournaments this
coming weekend and the State tournament at JMU in December. We need volunteers for Referees, Judges, and
Judges Assistance. Please contact these tournament
directors directly or email me if you want to help with judging at GMU on 11/16
or 11/17. - Thanks.