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Encyclopedia > FIRST Lego League
A typical FLL robot from the 2004 season, using the RIS platform

The FIRST Lego League (also known by its acronym FLL) is a competition for elementary and middle school students (ages 9-14, 9-16 in Europe), arranged by the FIRST organization. The competition revolves around making Lego robots to complete many tasks. Each year the contest focuses on a different topic related to the sciences. Each challenge within the competition then revolves around that theme. The students then work out solutions to the various problems that they're given and meet for regional tournaments to share their knowledge and show off their ideas. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 450 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1944 × 2592 pixel, file size: 454 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) A typical First Lego League robot using the RIS platform I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 450 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1944 × 2592 pixel, file size: 454 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) A typical First Lego League robot using the RIS platform I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... FIRST Logo FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1989 in order to develop ways to inspire students in engineering and technology fields. ... For other uses, see Lego (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see robot (disambiguation). ...

Contents

Competition details

There are four main facets to the competition. Firstly, students are interviewed by a panel of judges probing them for their teamwork. Secondly, the students must demonstrate that the robot that they built is designed appropriately for the task given. Thirdly, the students must do an independent project that relates to the topic and give a short presentation to a panel of judges on the investigative problem solving they completed. Finally, the students must use the robots they designed to complete a set of tasks on a playing field.


FIRST Lego League (FLL) teams use Lego Mindstorms kits to build small autonomous robots that traverse these Lego playing fields and complete the given tasks. The organization is a partnership between FIRST and The Lego Group. A team comprises many group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. ... Lego Mindstorms is a line of Lego sets combining programmable bricks with electric motors, sensors, Lego bricks, and Lego Technic pieces (such as gears, axles, beams, and pneumatic parts) to build robots and other automated or interactive systems. ... FIRST Logo FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1989 in order to develop ways to inspire students in engineering and technology fields. ... Lego Group is a family-owned company, based in Billund, Denmark and best known for the manufacture of Lego-brand toys. ...


Time can vary for teams in different parts of the world for the time allotted to complete the construction of the robot, due to the varying date of qualifying tournaments. They go on to compete in FLL events, similar to the FIRST Robotics Competition regionals. In the 2005-2006 season, over 7000 teams, and 80,000 students from around the world competed. Each team has to compete in a local/regional qualifying tournament before advancing to the state/provincial tournaments. The 1st place Director's Cup/Grand Champion winners from each state/provincial tournament is then invited to the World Festival.[1] In 2007, 96 teams competed in the World Festival in Atlanta, GA on April, 12th-14th.[2]


Regional Competition Awards

  • Robot Table Performance
  • Research Presentation Award
  • Techhnical Interview Award
  • Teamwork Award


State Competition Awards

  • Champion's Award- 1st Place
  • Champion's Award- 2nd Place
  • Robot Table Performance 1st Place
  • Robot Table Performance 2nd Place
  • Robot Table Performance 3rd Place
  • Robot Design Award
  • Programming Award
  • Innovative Design Award
  • Research Quality Award
  • Innovative Solution Award
  • Creative Presentation Award
  • Teamwork Award
  • Rookie-Team-of-the-Year Award
  • Team Spirit Award
  • Judges' Award
  • Outstanding Volunteer Award
  • Outstanding Mentor Award
  • Outstanding Young Adult Mentor Award

Challenges

Table Performance


The robots made by the participants are set to work here. The robot has two and a half minutes to complete as many tasks as possible. Two members of the team are allowed at the board during a match, though they can switch out if needed. The members will start the robot when the timer starts and surpervise it as it complete the challenges laid out on the board. If a problem occurs, then they are allowed to fix it, sometimes at the cost of a few points.



Technical Interview


Each team has a 10 minute interview with a team of judges to discuss the design and operation of their robot. Judges look for teams whose work stands out for its innovation, dependability, or both. To assess innovation, the judges watch the robots work, looking for things that impress them and they interview team members to reveal the less obvious unique and inventive ideas. To assess dependability, the judges interview the teams to learn what solid principles and best practices were used to reduce variability and errors.



Teamwork Observation and Interview


Observation judges watch each team in action and also interview the team to discuss how the team functioned. Judges identify teams that best demonstrate extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit, exceptional partnership, the utmost respect to their own teammates, and support and encouragement of fellow teams.


Competition Themes

The challenges for FLL are based on several different themes:

Year Theme Notes
1999 First Contact (Space)[3]
2000 Volcanic Panic[4]
2001 Arctic Impact[5]
2002 City Sights Robots completed tasks such as clearing rocks off a soccer field, harvesting and delivering food loops, collecting toxic barrels, activating a windmill, and other city-related tasks.[6]
2003 Mission Mars Inspired by the year's Mars Rover mission, competing teams had to design and construct robots to solve a number of problems like removing rocks from a 'solar panel' to ensure a Mars base energy supply, collect 'soil/rock samples' from the Martian desert landscape, etc.[7]
2004 No Limits (Disabilities) Centered around various robotic assistant systems for disabled persons, robots demonstrate how the systems are (hopefully) able to solve the given problems in a satisfying way.[8]
2005 Ocean Odyssey Involved marine-themed tasks such as mapping a sunken ship, deploying a research submarine, and cleaning up a shipping spill.[9]
2006 Nano Quest The challenge is developing anything using nanotechnology that improves or makes life easier from medicine to computers to the environment.[10]
2007 Power Puzzle The challenge is on alternative energy and features tasks such as moving powerlines, fuel sources and planting trees.[11]

This article is about the year. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full 2000 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Artists Concept of Rover on Mars NASAs Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission (since 2003) is a unmanned Mars exploration mission that includes sending two Rovers (robots) to explore the Martian surface and geology. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ocean Odyssey drilling rig publicity photo Ocean Odyssey (Sea Launch) at port The Ocean Odyssey was a self-propelled, semi-submersible drilling rig which was rebuilt as a mobile spacecraft launch platform and is currently used by Sea Launch for equatorial Pacific Ocean launches. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Buckminsterfullerene C60, also known as the buckyball, is the simplest of the carbon structures known as fullerenes. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...

Recent developments

RCX programmable brick.

In August 2006 a new Mindstorms kit called the NXT was put out by Lego. The RCX, the previous kit, was still allowed to be used in competition in 2006 (RCX users had a slight advantage in points because the RCX was less advanced and therefore harder to program.) Lego is no longer selling the original RCX Mindstorms kits to the general public. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1036x1150, 271 KB)Lego Mindstorms RCX, photographed by Mairi. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1036x1150, 271 KB)Lego Mindstorms RCX, photographed by Mairi. ... The NXT motors, sensors and intelligent brick. ... ... ...


The 2007 FLL topic will be on energy.


See also

FIRST Logo FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1989 in order to develop ways to inspire students in engineering and technology fields. ... RoboCup Junior is closely related to the RoboCup autonomous robotic soccer competition. ... Lego Mindstorms is a line of Lego Group products combining programmable bricks with electric motors, sensors, Lego bricks, and Lego Technic pieces (such as gears, axles, beams, and pneumatic parts) to build robots and other automated or interactive systems. ... The FIRST Vexâ„¢ Challenge (FVC) is a mid-level robotics competition targeted toward high-school aged students. ... Robofest Logo Robofest is a competition for 5-12 graders where a team of up to 5 members builds and programs 2 robots to complete multiple missions in 2 minutes autonomously. ...

Notes and references

  1. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=13390.
  2. ^ Team Roster.
  3. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=490.
  4. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/nobanner.aspx?pid=480.
  5. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/nobanner.aspx?pid=120.
  6. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/nobanner.aspx?pid=7520.
  7. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/nobanner.aspx?pid=11240.
  8. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/nobanner.aspx?pid=13420.
  9. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/nobanner.aspx?pid=17940.
  10. ^ www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=21380.
  11. ^ http://www.firstlegoleague.org/nobanner.aspx?pid=0.

External links

v • d • e
LEGO Group
Lego • History of Lego • Timeline
Products Themes • Computer and video games • Board games • Duplo • Pneumatics • Lego Baby • Minifigures
People Ole Kirk Christiansen • Godtfred Kirk Christiansen • Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen • Jørgen Vig Knudstorp
Legoland Legoland Billund • Legoland California • Legoland Deutschland • Legoland Windsor
Events/Conventions BrickFest • Brickworld • FIRST Lego League • Robofest
Other The Brick Testament • Brickfilm • Clone Bricks • Irregular Webcomic! • L gauge • LDraw • Serious Play • Magazine • LUGNET • MLCAD • Modulex • My Own Creation

  Results from FactBites:
 
Colorado FIRST (772 words)
FIRST's Vision is to positively transform culture by inspiring young people, their schools, and communities to appreciate science and technology.
The FIRST LEGO League (FLL), considered the "little league" of the FIRST Robotics Competition, is the result of a partnership between FIRST and the LEGO Company.
FLL extends the FIRST concept of inspiring and celebrating science and technology to children usually aged 9 through 14, using real-world context and hands-on experimentation.
FIRST Lego League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (625 words)
The FIRST Lego League (also known by its acronym FLL) is a competition for elementary and middle school students (ages 9-14, 9-16 in Europe), arranged by the FIRST organization.
FIRST Lego League (FLL) teams use Lego Mindstorms kits to build small autonomous robots that traverse these Lego playing fields and complete the given tasks.
The organization is a partnership between FIRST and The Lego Group.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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