| FIRST Lego League |
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What is The FIRST Lego League?
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| 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 aged 9 through 14, using real-world context and hands-on experimentation. With the help of LEGO® MINDSTORMS™ Robotics Invention System™ technology, young participants can build a robot and compete in a friendly, FIRST-style robotics event specially designed for their age group. Using LEGO bricks and other elements such as sensors, motors, and gears, teams gain hands-on experience in engineering and computer programming principles as they construct and program their unique robot inventions. |
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Why Participate in The FIRST Lego League?
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| The FIRST Lego League is an ideal means of meeting the needs of Juneau's elementary Extended Learning students, as articulated in their student learning plans. Students are highly motivated to creatively problem-solve while learning and applying valuable scientific, engineering, and programing skills. |
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Who is Eligible?
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| 2004-2005 is the first school year FIRST Lego League was offered in Juneau. At Riverbend, the program was limited to fifth graders in the Extended Learning Program. Thanks to the money we raised selling nachos at lunch for a semester, we were able to purchase three additional kits. If anyone has old kits they are no longer using or would like to donate a new kit to our program, we would be thrilled!
For the 2006-2007 school year (and every other year following), robotics will be limited to fourth and fifth graders. Every EL program in the district has the opportunity to participate in robotics, so we need to share our robotics kits with other elementary schools. For the 2007-2008 school year (and every other year following), all EL students will have some opportunity to use the robotics program. I am also hoping to offer an after school robotics activity club, so that students who are not pulled out of class for EL also have the opportunity to work with these materials. At the point we begin official, sanctioned FIRST competitions, we will need to comply with their eligibility requirements as well: FLL attracts both boys and girls' interests. The program is for 9-14-year olds, and is flexible enough in structure that a team can form within the school or home-school environment, as an after-school program, with a neighborhood group, or as part of any youth-based organization. If you have a student less than 9 years old, but think he or she will be socially and academically comfortable with the older group, that is fine. To accommodate middle school students, child participants must not be older than 14. It is all right if he or she turns fifteen during the year. |
| Where Can I Get More Information? |
| FIRST Lego Logo League Mini-Challenges (pdf) Art of LEGO Design (pdf) Alaska Robotics Education Association High Tech Kids Robolab at Tufts University |
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Sheryl Hall Wittig ~ Page last updated on
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