FLL Team Startup II

As the coach of a new team in the 3rd week of the FLL challenge and still without their FSK or their robot, I think the first thing that I'd tell another new coach is to REGISTER AND ORDER EARLY.    Especially before school starts.  If you're setting up your team to be affiliated with a 501c3, just plan on doubling that time and then check your order status every day after it's completed.  You have to email the document for the 501c3 to Lego and then someone has to go into the ordering system and the email system and link the two.  I learned this lesson the hard way after 3 wasted weeks and an hour or so on hold on two separate phone calls to Lego.

This year Lego decided to move their Education HQ from Pittsburgh, KS to Boston and it doesn't seem like things are ironed out just yet.  Having all of the schools and FLL teams ordering at roughly the same time shouldn't be a problem for the Kristiansens and I hope that they'll smooth the process a bit.

Some members of the team are headed to a workshop put on by Ms. Kidwell of the Learning Math & Science Club this weekend.  Her work is well organized and presented and we look forward to it being helpful.

FLL Team Startup

The LW and I are coaching a First Lego League (FLL) team this fall.  We're affiliating the team with our daughter's Girl Scout Troop and will be combining the two at meetings.  Last week, this year's challenge was released and since we are newly formed, we're behind.  A bit of luck fell in our lap though when we realized that our daughter's middle school Industrial Arts class fields two teams of 7th/8th graders.  The class instructor is great and will be a solid mentor for the new team.

There are tons of information about FLL on their website and others, but that seems to be the one of the biggest problems as a new coach.  Finding information is really simple.  Finding useful information is rather time consuming.

Here's the link to the 2016 FLL Animal Allies Challenge.  First thing for new people:  Open each one of the links on that page in a new tab in your browser and save the Challenge Guide as a PDF on the computer that you'll use for organizing stuff.  By the third or fourth time you run in circles trying to find something, you may just break down and create a master link list like I did.

The team has their Animal Allies homework to do for this week.  They are to work on the questions in the Challenge Guide that begin on page 6.  They'll identify 1-3 animal interactions and we'll discuss problems with each during the next meeting.

My homework is trying to get funds together to get the challenge board designed/built, registration paid, EV3 kit purchased, a toolbox/organizer purchased, and begin fundraising grant work that'll keep the team outfitted and humming along.