Coaches, BACKGROUND: The FIRST LEGO League organizers are always trying to figure out ways to make the overall season/tournament experience better and more meaningful for teams. They often field-test changes in a few regions to see how they work, and then tweak them before making a general change for all teams. Here are some of the concepts that they've tested out over the last several years: - Core Values Poster - Rubric Updates and Streamlining - Robot Design Executive Summary - Engineering Notebooks - Expansion of allowable software for robot programming There even was a scoring adjustment one season based on whether teams used an older robot controller or the brand-new improved version. After observation and feedback from volunteers, that was discontinued, because it wasn't needed. Based on this history, we can't be certain about specific requirements until we see next year's Challenge guide. DISCUSSION: The Core Values Poster and the Robot Design Executive Summary have been around for a few years, although we haven't required them in Virginia-DC FLL. Based on my experience judging in other states, I see them as tools to help teams organize their thoughts and prepare for judging. Whether or not the team talks about their poster during judging (FWIW, I don't want a team to spend a lot of time reading back everything on their poster,) teams that have put in time to work on a poster often seem to be better organized and prepared to talk about their season, because they've already thought about it in the context of Core Values, or Robot design and programming. This year's Challenge Guide has only one requirement for a Core Values Poster--don't make it larger than 3 feet by 4 feet. And it definitely allows for something of a different size to accommodate the team's needs for travel and storage. There are no requirements for a Project Poster. The Robot Design Executive Summary isn't a poster at all, but a structure for a discussion/presentation. So, teams should feel free to make a "poster" out of whatever materials are best suited for them. The only thing that I would warn against is making something that could require a lot of effort to set up, because that can distract a team, and reduce the time available for discussions during the judging session. Steve On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 8:02 AM Lucille Nottingham <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I am trying to find the specific rules for posters and or displays. I also > understood from the judges session at the state tournament that next year, > teams would be required to have something for project, core values, and > robot design. Can someone direct me to this information? For example, it > the team wanted to use a flannel board instead of a poster, is that > allowed? Thanks! > > -- > > *Lucy Nottingham* > > *Fourth Grade Teacher* > > *Hillsville Elementary School* > > > > Psalm 127: 3 Don't you see that children are God's best gift? MSG > ------------------------------ > To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your settings, please visit > https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or > leave the list". > VADCFLL administrative announcements are sent via VADCFLL-ANNOUNCEMENTS-L. > Visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-announcements-l.html to > subscribe. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your settings, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list". -- VADCFLL administrative announcements are sent via VADCFLL-ANNOUNCEMENTS-L. Visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-ANNOUNCEMENTS-l.html to subscribe.