Hi!
If you are visiting for more information about FLL for ages 9-14...WELCOME! The blog entries below summarize in a nutshell the Hydrodynamics season. The goal is to give you what I wish I had...an overall idea of what to expect. FLL should announce next season's challenge topic and resources in May. I plan to blog each step going forward into the season along with specific resources. Resources for each season are typically specific to the topic. Feel free to check back for details regarding how I tackle each step. If you have any questions or would like a mentor, please feel free to contact me: anna.dickinson@ cobbk12.org
0 Comments
Once FLL announces the "teaser" for the upcoming season, you will be able to register a team. The announcement happens May time frame.
We run our FLL team as a 5th grade Target unit. All 5th grade students experience programming an autonomous robot, researching a real world problem, and core values applications. At the end of October, we invite parents and students to visit our Lego Expo where all students demonstrate the 3 areas of Lego Robotics; robot, project, core values. After the expo, we provide the students an opportunity to apply for the robotics team using an application. Other options for a Lego Robotics team: After School Club Friday STEM Project Once you've decided how you want to host a team some things to consider:
The challenge itself along with the actual missions are not released until the end of August. This might sound daunting because as a coach...what do you do until then?? ROBOT
Truly, until the challenge is revealed... These are the activities to work on! AND DON'T FORGET! Once the challenge is released...ORDER YOUR MAT AND MISSIONS!! This is a separate cost of $75 from the team registration. Build the missions! If you haven't already done so...start building. All resources can be located on the FLL website...including the building instructions.
Stress the importance of missions being built 100% accurately. My classroom atmosphere is 99.9% about making mistakes to learn...except with Lego missions. If the missions are not correct, then you are programming a robot to perform incorrectly. That's such a difficult concept for students to grasp! Lego provides interlocking sticky strips that allows you to place missions on the board securely but not permanently. The goal now is to equally divide your time 3 ways: ROBOT PROJECT CORE VALUES ROBOT: As a class, we discuss and rank what we feel are the easiest to more difficult missions to tackle. Tackle the easiest first in order to get the feel of programming...trial...assess the errors...adjust. Repeat. Part of core values is sharing with others and gracious professionalism, so we reiterate over and over the importance of sharing those "aha" moments when programming with others. This is what builds us all to be better in what we do and learn. Many teams start off not wanting to share how to better program a turn or a website to assist with building a jig. We work through core values to realize that sharing is a win-win for all. At this point, each team is somewhat on their own as far as which missions they tackle/accomplish and the coach/teacher becomes a facilitator. PROJECT FINALLY! Something to do for those passionate research students! A good place to start is the project portion of the challenge guide. It's A LOT TO READ so it's good to help highlight important parts such as examples that FLL provides of ways to tackle the problem. Often there are resources/websites provided, helpful vocabulary terms, suggestions of what to do / not to do. The goal is to find an innovative solution to the challenge problem that has not already be done. With hydrodynamics...so many ideas were out there that it became difficult to find a new way to solve the problem. We first start out with:
CORE VALUES This becomes intertwined with the robot and project. One thing I started is a Core Values Shout Out. The students could take an index card and write "I would like to nominate______________ for Core Value __________ because ___________." This took off like wildfire and each class enjoyed reading about one another throughout the week. But most importantly, it ensures students are recognizing the traits within each other. I took poster board and drew a circle in the middle (it will be labeled "Core Values"). Then drew from the circle and divided it out into 8 jigsawed pieces. Cut it apart. Each team took a section and illustrated a core value. Then tape it back together. Allow students to create parodies of core values. Basically take a song or a skit and students rewrite it to include core values. Be sure to video tape as they are hilarious and spectacular! OVERALL GOALS FOR SEPTEMBER: ROBOT- 2 to 3 missions programmed. They might not be successful missions but at least have 2-3 going and are trouble-shooting for errors and accuracy. Seesaw is a great tool for recording missions and posting to a central location for all to view. PROJECT- Area of focus for the problem, alarming facts, a guiding question to focus research, and hopefully some ideas for a solution that is not already out there. Picture to support facts. We use notebooks to collect everything. Office 365 is a great way for students to collaborate together. CORE VALUES- It ebbs and flows. There will be times as a coach you will need to intervene between two team members or ignite the fire for all teams to recognize ways to demonstrate these traits. Sharing with others is always a challenge so sometimes it's good to have those students who need something new to work on to brainstorm ways we can share what we are doing in FLL. October is a big month of balancing and juggling each team and their progress. Typically for all of our Target 5th grade students to experience FLL, we the coaches manage anywhere from 12-15 teams of students.
That's 12-15 project ideas. 12-15 teams of robots tackling missions all differently. And don't forget Core Values. It can get overwhelming. However, we stay the course and encourage the students to be the risk takers and to keep persevering even when all options are exhausted. We are continually observing our students and generating new checklists of items to make sure are completed. For us, October is the month of conferencing. We meet with teams to find out where they are struggling. We meet with teams to discuss robot issues. We are basically ensuring that all teams will go to our school FLL Expo feeling good about what their team accomplished. Some teams will have better missions. Some teams will have a phenomenal project idea with a unique presentation. It's all based on the strengths of the team members. What's inspiring is to see the vast differences and to recognize that at our expo. We have had some emotion packed moments where robots suddenly do not want to cooperate with teams ready to burst into tears. And in that moment, we see other teams rally and support and cheer them on regardless of the robot's outcome to perform the missions. We have had teams with project boards that suddenly collapse and again, others rush in with tape or suggestions or ways to help encourage. This is truly what FLL is about. If you do not plan to have an expo and already have your competition team, I would imagine for October you would want to ensure you have the following: 2-3 missions accurately performing if not more on deck. Research, graphs of data, current solutions, diagrams of your solution, facts and data to support innovative solution, a catchy way to present your project, possibly an interview with an expert in a field...honestly the sky is the limit on what direction you want to take the project portion. Core Value board in progress demonstrating the areas FLL wants displayed along with pictures and anything that depicts your season to make you stand out above the rest. Giveaways being made Team poster for regional competition Since we have our 5th graders apply for the competition team, November is the month where we scramble to pull ideas, programming, and the team together. If you've not already considered it, team shirts are definitely a unifying component. I use Big Frog only because they are close. Their turn around time is pretty quick. I always include a shirt for myself. On the pocket I try to keep it simple; team name, team number, school. On the back will be a logo related to our theme/topic, team name, team number, and student first names.
We generally hold after school practices 2-3 times a week and from 2:30-3:45ish. We brainstorm a to-do list and assign each team member a task. As coaches, we facilitate. The more we turn this over to the kids, the better results we have of them performing at each level of competition. At the end of each practice, we assign tasks of what was not finished in an effort to have them done by the next practice. We rehearse the skit, discuss props that will garnish attention and also support the project idea. We use timers and run the robot over and over to see what missions can be accomplished as well as the most efficient order in which to start. For Core Values we practice team building activities. Overall we also practice walking in and out of a judging room. Sounds silly but you'd be surprised at teams at all levels who argue as they walk in and/or out. We practice making eye contact when speaking and shaking hands. We practice various responses to give to judges and how to strike up a conversation. We rehearse our project in front of students and teachers who give feedback. Parents can also be a great audience. Once you've registered and you've found out your location to compete, below is my checklist of items. FLL and/or your regional contact person will use your email that you provided when the account for your team was created. This is how you will know when to register as well notifications of your tournament assignment etc.
Other items to take to Regionals and each advancing round
Day of Regionals:
You will typically check in your team with the roster and team sheets. They will always provide a current schedule as it can sometimes change as well as any other important venue information. You will be assigned a table in what is called "the pits." This is where your team will set up the project board, core values board, and basically where your team is until it is time for judging rooms or robot rounds. This is where parents hang out and it's always good to have those handy parents who will run errands or you can text to get things prepped for the next judging round. At one level, the times were so back to back it was imperative that the parents had the items lined up and ready to go for the next judging room in order for us to grab and go. Be prepared to arrive to your competition location around 7:45 and stay throughout the day until at the earliest 3:30 that afternoon. By the time all teams have finished judging rooms and robot rounds, the judges typically need additional time to deliberate. Once everything is wrapped up, there will be an awards ceremony. Throughout the day, I strive to be at either the judging rooms or robot tables a few minutes early. The last thing you want is to be that team called over the intercom for not arriving to a location on time. Regardless of earning an award or not, the rubrics for your team will be given out as well as a lego key chain for all team members. What's tough to grasp is who advances. There are years we have won awards and advanced. There are years we've won awards and not advanced. There are years where we have not won awards and advanced. It's all based on the rubrics and the overall scores given. The best advice I can give is to have fun. Enjoy the ride and to check back with your region's main website to see advancement notifications. You will receive an email after a competition but I can never wait and know where to check for our region. I took the rubrics from regionals and copied a set for each team member. We picked through them to see our team highlights and well as areas of improvement.
Focusing on the highlights is just as important as looking to see where we could improve. The level of competition will be more intense. I coach my team to always appreciate what other teams have done but to be proud of what we have accomplished. All teams are in awe of what each other has accomplished. While regionals is held in December, super-regionals is mid-January. You can opt to have team practice over the school holiday break but often times students are traveling. I typically use time on teacher workdays if at all possible to get the team back together and to refocus back on FLL as well as practices leading up to super-regionals. Honestly, it's up to the kids. As a coach you can guide, provide, support, and even sometimes flat out tell a team what to work on and ultimately it has to be up to the team. You will want to bring the same items that were brought to regionals. Don't forget the team sheets as well as items to take to each judging room. Bring the robot and all items to run it effectively. At times parents will really want to step in and assist. I try to have on hand tasks such as assembling giveaways or attaching labels. If the project board has unevenly cut research typed up...it's o.k. If there are edges not fully glued down...it's o.k. I strive to have it be as much kid produced as possible. Not much changes in regards to rooms for judging in project, core values, and robot design as well as robot rounds.
You will notice the teams your team competes with are not always from locally surrounding areas so it is always interesting to strike up conversations with other coaches and encourage the students to do so with the other teams. It has a tendency to not run as long of a day but it will be begin roughly 7:45 with check in and teams hit the ground running around 8:15/8:30 with the day concluding around mid to late afternoon. Encourage, support, cheer on, and just enjoy the learning that is taking place for your team. Again at the awards ceremonies the same could happen in regards to awards and advancing. For the Animal Allies season which was the year before Hydrodynamics, we did not win any awards and we did not advance. For the Hydrodynamics season we did not win any awards and we did advance to the state rounds. I stress to my team to not focus on the prize aka an award but rather what all was accomplished and that intrinsic sense of completion. It was the Tuesday after MLK. Snow was predicted and we were instructed to leave as soon as students were dismissed. I had 1/2 of the team asking me to check to see if we were advancing to state. Nothing had been posted. I once again gave uplifting support and we all packed up to head home. School was cancelled and I happened to check that night and our team was advancing. Pretty cool to know a rookie team of six 5th graders would be compete against teams with students who could be 14 years of age.
State is a whole new level. You register to compete. All forms are submitted online. All ducks are in a row so to speak. If you have not saved a copy of the team sheet, recreate it because even it will be uploaded to a specific site/email address. Dates are steadfast and if you do not complete everything by them, there is no one to follow up. We had maybe a week and a half due to inclement weather and everyone's schedules to gather all materials to rally for state. We posted surveys to Twitter along with an online presentation. We upped our project display. We practiced over and over with what we had already learned from each judging room. |
AuthorAnna Dickinson ArchivesCategories |