FLL FAQ

Q: What does FLL stand for? 

A: FLL = First Lego League. It is part of the www.firstinspires.org world wide program.

Q: I want to coach – what is the time commitment

A: You will meet as team from 2nd week in September to first week in December ~ 12 weeks or 3 months. Teams meet once/week for 1-2 hours. On top of that figure 1-2 hours of prep time per week.

Q: What is the competition like? 

A: The competition scores teams in three areas: the robot, a research program, and core values such as teamwork and cooperation, so the robot is not the only aspect of the competition. There are 24 teams competing at Melrose Middle School from all over the area. 

Q: How do you use a robot with legos? 

A: There is a Lego set called either ev3 or Inventor that uses block-based programming language on a computer and can download to the Lego robot ‘brick’ via a cable or bluetooth 

Q: What if I don’t know how to program a robot? 

A: The programming is easy to use since it’s block-based, but we also plan to have training sessions for coaches and have a high-school student assigned to each team to help. 

Q: When is the season? 

A: Teams can register as early as early August, and the competition date at Melrose Middle School is the first weekend in December. The earlier you register, the sooner you get your kits and can get started on the fun! 

Q: How frequently should we meet? 

A: Teams can meet as frequently as you want, but one meeting per week of 1.5 to 2 hours is typically adequate. 

Q: Important upcoming dates? 

A: Keep these dates in mind:

• July 22 – program information session
• August 5 – team selection with parents (round-robin)
• August 19 – Session #1 – Coach the coach
• Sept 11 – Build a table event ( we need to build 11 playing tables)

Q: Where can teams meet? 

A: This is up to each individual team. You can request time at your elementary school or you can meet in your own house. 

Q: Who runs the team? 

A: We need at least one parent to help run each team (three recommended). The role of this parent would be to register the team, set up meetings, be present at each meeting, and coordinate at least the research part of the project if not also the robot part of the project. (See question above about programming a robot). 

• Robot coach – is responsible to help the students identify a mission strategy, define robot strategy for chassis and attachments, help the students organize to build, define code needs and test strategy.
• Project coach – is responsible to help the students to brainstorm on a major challenge to be solved, identify solutions, down-select to a solution, refine the idea, do research, and design a presentation format for judging.
• Backup coach (back fills is one parent isn’t available … it happens!!!)

Q: Who can be on the team? 

A: Students need to be 9-14 years old and the team has to have between 2-10 students per team. We recommend teams between 4-6 students so that everyone can contribute at each meeting. 

Q: How much does it cost? 

A: To register a team for the competition, it costs around $337 + T-Shirts, which includes all of the Lego field elements that your team gets to keep. A new robot kit costs around $350, but there may be kits available to borrow from the team.  The iRaders program will fund:

• EV3 Robot Kits
• Playing tables
  
• Registration to the Raiders Rumble District Qualifier

Teams will need to cover:

• T-Shirts
• Registration fees ($237 to register and $100 for playing field). This costs can be distributed based on team size

Any other questions? Send an email to melrosefirstrobotics@gmail.com or see the info on the flyer.