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Peter Vogel / fll_intro

Introduction to the Kathryn Hughes Elementary School FLL Team Program

This outline indicates the major topics to be covered in preparation for a team to compete in the FIRST LEGO League competition. I put this together for my own use coaching FLL Teams #423 and #1114.

The teams meet monday and wednesday afternoons, so the homework assigned on wednesdayis always considerably more work than the homework assigned on monday, since there is more time to get it done, including a weekend where no school homework is assigned.

I’m still working on “dialing in” the right levels, etc. For example, next time I won’t assign the whole “Art of LEGO Design” in one homework, since the reading there is especially challenging. Timing here is based largely on the fact that our first meeting was Sept 7. and I wanted the team ready to hit the challenge with all barrels when it is announced on Sept 29, so this schedule is particularly aggressive, with the belief that they’ll go back and re-visit what they’ve seen briefly as they need it. In other words, they needed to become familiar with the resources available to them and other basics, not become experts in everything all at once.

Where possible, I have borrowed liberally from existing curriculum materials from Pitsco-Dacta. In particular, I am using the activities pack for the ROBOLAB Starter Set (Pitsco catalog # D909780), the ROBOLAB TEAM Challenge pack (catalog #909790), and the Robotic systems concept guide (catalog #900041).

In addition, I am using “The Art of LEGO Design” from http://mevard.www.media.mit.edu/people/fredm/papers/artoflego.pdf and Jennifer Clark’s wonderful description of the LEGO design process for a skid-steer loader model at http://www.telepresence.strath.ac.uk/jen/lego/ls160.htm Finally, in order to ensure that all students have at least a small supply of LEGO Technic elements, each student is given a copy of the Klutz press book: LEGO Crazy Action Contraptions which comes with gears, beams, etc.

I am posting all of this in the sincere hope that this will be of use to others putting together an elementary-school level Robotics class, it does not have to be FLL-targeted.

All students involved were given a binder with the following contents:

Welcome Packet

Section 1 - Background Reading

The Art of LEGO Design
Robot Basics from the TEAM Challenge curriculum
Applied Engineering Terms and Concepts from the TEAM Challenge curriculum

Section 2 - Bumper Car Instructions

Home-made (with MLCad) instructions for building a simple robot with a front
bumper to serve as the initial platform for ROBOLAB programming exercises.

Section 3 - Programming Activities

Selected activity sheets from the ROBOLAB Starter set “Car” team activites.

Section 4 - TEAM Challenge

The complete student copymaster set from the TEAM challenge curriculum.

Section 5 - FLL Challenge Info

Empty until the Challenge is announced.

Class/Team meeting outlines, and the homework assigned from each can be found at robo_class_outline.

Pictures from the first intra-team competition (building the fastest car that has to stop as close to the finish line as possible) are available here: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/pvogel/FLL/RaceDay

See a video of the Unibots’ 2nd place clinching round at last year’s N. California State tournament:

Windows Media: ftp://ftp.stelizabeths-anglican.org/pub/movies/round3.asf

MPEG: ftp://ftp.stelizabeths-anglican.org/pub/movies/round3.mpg

Primary content in this document is © Peter Vogel. All other text, images, or trademarks in this document are the intellectual property of their respective owners.