Given questions about items in waste water, I reached out to FIRST for clarification.  Below is some guidance from the FIRST LEGO League Project Manager related to items in waste water.  I filtered the team’s specific solutions, so there is some paraphrasing. 

In the FLL Project, we place some restrictions on the type of PROBLEMS teams choose, but we generally do not restrict the solutions.  The important step, therefore, is to make sure your team’s problem meets any season-specific requirements.

I will point you back to the definition of “trash” we are using this season: “any item you are done with and want to dispose of” (with the exceptions of sewage and gasses).  We really want teams to focus on stuff that has come to the end of its intended use and now the owner needs to dispose of it responsibly.

Also, I would like to clarify the general question about water.  It’s not really a question of whether a certain kind of water is OK.  For the TRASH TREK Challenge, there is a difference between your “trash” and your “problem.”  For example, a team might identify cigarette butts as the trash they want to study.  Cigarette butts are used cigarettes that the owner is done with (meeting the definition of trash).  The butts often get washed into storm drains and then into natural bodies of water, where they can cause a variety of problems for both people and wildlife.  Any of those problems caused by the cigarette butts would probably be valid for TRASH TREK. Even though there is water involved in this example, the trash item being examined is NOT water.  That’s the point of the “no sewage” exception. 

The purpose of FLL is to help kids connect with real-world science and engineering concepts (while having fun).  Teams who go too far from the focus for this season may not rate as highly in judging, but one of our Core Values is “What we learn is more important than what we win.”  I think we would all be better off if we took that one to heart.

***Needs some core values challenges – signup for my weekly core values challenge at http://eepurl.com/bpeH5j.   We have publish over 20 core values challenges and have more coming. 

Thanks,

Scott Rakestraw

Judge Advisor