A FIRST LEGO League team from Exeter, NH
“Light That Candle!”
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About FLL
FIRST LEGO League is part of the FIRST family of international robotics competitions. FIRST stands for ‘For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology’, and is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit public charity founded by inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen. Dean believes that technology can be a powerfully positive force in the world and that young people should have access to programs that promote that idea while providing opportunities to build science and technology abilities along with self-confidence, leadership, and life skills.
In FIRST LEGO League (FLL), teams of up to 10 students, ages 9 to 14, have about eight weeks to design, build and program a LEGO based robot capable of autonomously completing a series of tasks within a specified period of time. At the end of the season, teams from the area meet in a friendly, day long competition.
However, FIRST LEGO League is about much more than just the robot! Each year the competition is based on a new ‘challenge’. The challenge deals with some problem the world is facing in which technology may be part of the solution. Previous challenges have been centered on such topics as protecting the world’s oceans, using energy efficiently, helping people with disabilities, and solving the special challenges that come with cities.
How a team’s robot performs on the playing field represents only 25% of their total score! Other factors include their teamwork, how well they can describe the robot technically, and how well they do on their project presentation.
During the season, teams will be researching and developing a ‘real-world’ solution to a problem presented by the challenge, which is then presented to a panel of judges, usually in the form of a skit or other creative work. The project presentation is independent of the ‘robot’ portion of the competition, and the solution the team presents to the project challenge does not need to include robotic elements.
Learn more about FLL and FIRST here.