Good evening, Virginia & DC FLL Coaches!

 

The Red Beard Pandas, FTC Team 4924 in Blacksburg, has developed a rhythm of publishing their “Robot in 30 Hours” as an aid for new coaches and teams in Virginia.  Each year, within a few hours of the challenge release, our team of mostly middle-school FIRST Tech Challenge students hosts a hackathon to develop short videos specific to the FLL challenge. The 15 missions of Unearthed can appear daunting to a new coach, so our approach is to make:

• Short 1-2 minute how-to videos
• Provide Video, Code, and a screen-shot of the code
• Use the EV3 platform, in the standard tribot configuration
• Keep attachments simple
• No sensors other than the motors built-in rotation counter
• Explained by young students with FLL experience

 

This project came out of our own non-profit’s observation that the FLL season is a lot to swallow for a new coach. We personally saw many coaches get overwhelmed by the YouTube videos that show off an elaborate robot, an impossibly high score, and do it all.  Certainly amazing, but not what a new coach needs!  We want to help our fellow Virginia FIRST become passionate about robotics, sharing our experience and showing that simple solutions can work!

 

If you know someone who might benefit from our tips, please share our web page: https://www.team4924.org/Outreach/fll-unearthed-2025-2026

 

Insights to share:

• Mission model construction took us 2 hours using 10 students and 5 laptops or tablets with directions.
• Mission 4, “Careful Recovery” is this year’s “Kraken’s Treasure” – a tougher mission you’ll want to tackle after gaining some experience and low-hanging fruit!
• Putting it all together: there’s obviously more than just missions.  Putting together a 2.5 minute table run involves strategically combining the missions you do well to earn the most points.  Attachment changes are key, minimizing cycle-time.  One of our videos gives a few tips and insights.
• Sensors and Squaring: advanced FLL teams often ask us about use of the stripes and squaring up the robot.  We have two recent graduates explain the approach, and share a demo on the Unearthed table.
• Adapting this to Spike Prime is not difficult, using the mission video and code screen-shot as a reference.  EV3 is our lowest-common-denominator, so that’s what our non-profit uses.

 

We had a lot of fun working on this! It’s our project-management & team building exercise prior to the FTC kickoff. We hope you find it useful, and we are available as a resource for any FLL questions, especially in Southwest Virginia!

Our team email address is [log in to unmask]

 

Henry M. Bass, President

Automation Creations, Inc. and

New River Robotics Association

2020 Kraft Drive, Suite 3000

Blacksburg, VA 24060-6354

www.nrvFIRST.com

NRRA is an all-volunteer 501(c )(3) organization dedicated to inspiring students through hands-on robotics