Three Vision Charter FLL Robotics Teams Go On To State!

The Terminators, Mammal Madness, and Crazy Cobra teams will be moving on to the State FLL Robotics competition in Twin Falls on January 28! All three teams, comprised of twenty-seven fourth through eighth-grade students and their coaches, get back to work this week putting in approximately thirty more hours to prepare for the upcoming state competition.

This year one team wrote and produced a song about the benefit of bats and then choreographed and performed for the judges during their project judging session. This team also designed and built a 3D printed prototype and working original bat box design that is “more bat and human-friendly.”

Another team heading to state focused their research and innovative solution on bringing dogs into the school to increase reading scores for students who struggle with reading. Students surveyed felt that this positively impacted their experience with reading.

One of the areas the teams are judged on is Core Values. In this judging session, the team is given a new and unique problem to solve in five minutes or less. The judges evaluate their teamwork and conflict resolution skills as they work together to discover a solution.

Another judged category is Robot Design. The teams develop and present their robot to a panel of judges and discuss the Robot Design, Programming, and Strategy for completing missions. During this judged session, every student on the team has a specific job of sharing about the robot and how it works.  Every robotics team member learns to build and program; however, individual students also specialize in a particular area such as Strategy Analysis, Project Management, Graphic Design, Marketing, Public Relations, Core Values, Team Spirit, Timekeeper, Programming Lead, Building Lead, or Team Captain. The teams learn that they are stronger and better together and learn to utilize each other’s strengths.

Robotics Coach and Administrator, Wendy Oldenkamp shared, “One thing that most people don’t know is that all of our FLL robotics students also learn to line dance. They actually do line dance lessons during summer robotics camp and their coaches and mentors join in the fun. A couple of the students on the team have taught the lessons for the past few years.

After every FLL robotics tournament for the past four years the music comes on and our kids are out leading the other teams in line dancing and having fun no matter how their robot does on the field.”  Find out more about this year’s challenge and First Lego League at: http://www.firstlegoleague.org/challenge or http://www.first-lego-league.org/en/2016.html.