FLL Teams,

We're about halfway between the Trash Trek Challenge release and the last weekend of VA-DC regional tournaments, so your team may be starting to look at the various missions that your robot can get points on and thinking about how you combine them to do the most during a 2.5 minute match.

Now that you've figured out what is going on with the robot game, it is really, really helpful to have each of the team members read and reread the Missions, Rules, Updates, and Field Setup documents.

Challenge your assumptions! Is something allowable that you haven't thought of before? Or, is something that you are doing now not going to be allowed at a tournament?

There's a special energy and creativity that team members get from the combination of panic and adrenaline that shows up when a referee tells them, "Did you know, you're not actually allowed to do that because of Rule XYZ?" It's better to save that creativity to respond to the robot movement and operations issues that will also probably show up.

Teams that rely on their coach to master the rules are typically less successful than teams that have one or more team members who are the experts. Your team members have to know the game documents in order to have a meaningful discussion with the tournament referees when asking for benefit of the doubt (GP3) during scoring.

Here's your bonus for reading through this message. There will be a big batch of game Updates released in the next day or two. Make sure to check for them and read them through. They may clarify some questions for you, and there will be changes that your team should know about.

Last weekend I met with many of the regional tournament directors and head referees. We are getting excited to see our Virginia-DC FLL teams in action--I know that you will show us some great ideas that we haven't thought of on the table, and that you'll have remarkable things to show to the judges too.

Steve Scherr
Virginia-DC FLL Referee Advisor