FIRST LEGO League

• Calendar of events for the 2010 FLL season
• Introduction to FLL and Los Altos Robotics
• How to start your own team
• Useful Los Altos Robotics FLL pages
• Helping Out
• More Information

Los Altos Robotics FIRST LEGO League 2010 Calendar

Overview Documents

The Los Altos Robotics 2010 First LEGO League Flyer (PowerPoint version) is a good 1-page flyer with a brief description and schedule. It was used to advertise the availability of the FLL program to children in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. This shorter text only announcement was given to the Los Altos school district office to be distributed to the Los Altos and Los Altos Hills students. Feel free to distribute them to anyone you think might benefit from seeing it, such as potential team members and coaches. Many Los Altos schools distribute this flyer in their office.

The 2008 Los Altos Robotics FLL Parent Orientation Presentation is a 20+ page presentation that describes the program in Los Altos and gives tips on how to form teams. This is a good place to start if you are new to FLL.

Brief Description of FLL

An extension of the High School Robotics Competition, FLL pairs an academic challenge with a sports-like playing field where kids invent autonomous robots. Using the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System, teams of students, teachers, coaches, and parents receive a Challenge which is different every year. Each team is then responsible for the design, construction, programming, and testing of their robot to compete in the Challenge.

The brain of a LEGO MINDSTORMS robot is a micro-computer mounted inside a super-sized LEGO brick. This is called the NXT.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention Challenge Kit includes an NXT brick, over 700 LEGO pieces, motors, light and touch sensors, gears, a CD-ROM including the NXT code programming environment, and a USB cable to download the program directly into the NXT on a robot.

Starting Your Own Team

Starting teams is an important part of the Los Altos Robotics program. The following documents provide a wealth of information for forming a new team. You do not need to be a technology person to form a robotics team with your child. However, you do need to be dedicated, read the coaching documents that are provided, allocate enough time with kids, and be ready to do a bit of homework. If you, or one of the parents who is helping, can install computer games and get them working when there are minor problems, then you know enough technology to help the kids in case something breaks.

Start by reading Participating in Los Altos Robotics FLL. This page gives instructions specific to starting a team and participating in the Los Altos Robotics league. It also contains the I need a team registration form in the More Ideas for Organizing and Starting a Team section.

Then look at:

• National FLL How To Start An FLL Team page. The Get Involved with FLL page also talks about starting a team and other ways for people to get involved by becoming a Mentor; becoming a Team, Event or Program Sponsor; and volunteering for an Event.
• Northern California FLL How To Start An FLL Team page. The Los Altos Robotics tournament in November is a "qualifier" for the Northern California Championship tournament run by NCaFLL in January.
• Michael Schuh's FLL Coach's Guide:  This page outlines Michael's advice to new coaches.  He has coached one or two teams each year since his first FLL season in 1999.  He has developed a coaching style that works and describes it here.

Useful Los Altos Robotics FLL pages

• FIRST LEGO League Registration FAQ: Answers to the common registration questions that have been sent to Michael Schuh.  Please try checking here before emailing.   You might quickly find your answer.
• Team Resources such as the Los Altos Robotics Flier and presentations from the Los Altos Robotics Orientation and Coaches Training are archived available. These are the materials that we have created to help people understand the program and form and have better teams.
• Through the years, Michael Schuh has collected FLL Programming and Design Suggestions and has archived them for all to use.
• FIRST LEGO League Simple Playing Field Design: Tells about how we have built playing fields for the teams.
• Competition Results and Files is where you will find the scoring results from past years Los Altos FLL competitions. Also included are the Excel scoring spread sheets and PowerPoint certificate files used in the competitions.
• The 2009 season was great. Check out our FLL History page for what happened in 2009 at Los Altos and in NorcalFLL tournaments. We also have history of prior years including many videos.
• Most robotics teams from Los Altos have fun, work hard, and demonstrated gracious professionalism. A few have also been fortunate enough to be recognized at some of the major state and national robotics tournaments. The Los Altos Robotics State and National Team Award Page recognizes those teams and we hope inspires future teams.

Helping Out

It takes a lot of people to help us run the teams and make the tournament a success. We will need help again this year. Please help out however you can and in whatever way is satisfying and fun for you.

• Teams need Team Coach(1), Assistant Coach(1-2), Team Manager(1), and a Practice Session Host (provide a large room for the team meetings).
• The tournament opportunities page is where you can learn about how you can help out at a Scrimmage and/or Local Competition. Each team is expected to provide a volunteer for each of the events the team participates in.
• The Board of Directors has open positions and the people currently holding positions can use some help. Come join us at a Board meeting to see how you can participate! Check the Board of Directors page to see a list of Board members and position, and a schedule of future board meetings.

For More Information

• Contact Michael Schuh, MichaelLosAltosRobotics.Org, 650-965-8037 Home, 650-604-1460 Work.
• The TigerBots Email List is used for all Los Altos Robotics announcements. It is very helpful if at least one person from each family involved in FLL in the Los Altos area joins the Los Altos Robotics TigerBots yahoogroups.com email list. You can find out more about the list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TigerBots. Your email address will be kept private and not distributed outside of Los Altos Robotics board and coaches. To subscribe, simply send email to: TigerBots-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. If you decide to unsubscribe, email: TigerBots-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
• Also see the much more thorough More Information section in Michael Schuh's FLL Coach's Guide for additional resources.

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