Our younger group, made up of kids aged 8 to 13 years who compete in the First Lego League Challenge (FLL) program.
The 2023 season will be starting in September, and we are currently expecting to host just one team. This year’s FLL theme is called “Masterpiece”, and focuses on how to make art more accessible.
Since 2011, our FLL kids have occasionally sponsored an activity at the 4-H Holiday Faire. The Faire has been a fun opportunity for kids to see holiday-themed crafts created by 4-Hers’, and our club has sponsored a table where guests could build simple gizmos. They have also staffed a table from 10am to 6pm at the county fair. Demonstrating robots, and discussing the FLL team projects.
2012 FIRST Lego League Challenge “Senior Solutions”. the kids researched issues important to senior citizens, and presented their findings at the FLL regional competition in November 2012. Winning a “Robot Design” award, and advanced to the regional championships held at the University of Rochester.
The 2013 FLL season brought exciting growth, from one team with 12 kids (well, 9 on the team and 3 “cheerleaders”) last season to 27 kids competing as three teams. In addition, the 2013 season can purchased new LEGO Mindstorm EV3 robot kits, so in addition to the new teams, we also worked with the new robots. The theme for 2013 was “Nature’s Fury”, where each team researched problems caused by weather. Each of the three teams won an award at the regional tournament. One team “Prehistoric Rootics” advanced to the regional championships, the other two teams won awards.
The 2014 season theme was “World Class”. Orleans county ran 4 teams, working on projects to improve education. “Prehistoric Robots” again advanced to championships with their idea for a memory-wristwatch. Marlene won the “Outstanding Volunteer” award at the championship tournament.
In 2015, “Trash Trek” theme was also a 4 team season for the club. While we had several interesting projects, and a couple competitive robots, this was our first season where none of our teams advanced to the regional championship tournament.
2016 we fielded 3 teams for “Animal Allies”. There were several exciting milestones, the “Mad Scientists” advanced to the regional championships with their idea for a 3d-printed leg for a local dog that was brought to the area by Save a Sato. In addition to raising a around $100 for the Save-A-Sato, the team won the “Research Award” at the regional championship tournament.
The 2017 season “Hydro Dynamics”. The team looked at issues related to water leaving Lake Ontario, and proposed a system to reduce the impact of the water, while also providing some new habitats for wildlife.
2018 “Into Orbit”, our students investigated the growing-time, and nutritional value of plants to grow in space. Ultimately deciding to analyze the time it took to grow plants, with the nutritional value received from those plants.
2019 the challenge was “CityShaper”, and the kids took up a challenge close to home, trying to make a relaxing location during county fair. One idea which came out of the season was to build a “tiny library” – which was created (after the season) – and can be found next to the education center.
2020 Season was called “RePlay” (and had the added challenge of COVID. We only had two students, (and no competition season) — but the kids decided that a good project would be to create a fitness-trail at the fairgrounds.
2021 brought us “Cargo Connect”, where the challenge involved finding a problem/solution related to getting stuff where it needs to go. This was also our SECOND COVID season. And while FIRST did end up having a “remote” competition — we did not participate 🙁
2022 Season called “SuperPowered” was focused on finding solutions to power-related problems. The kids decided that recycling batteries was an important problem, and dug into the details of how to recycle batteries. The team won a “Core Values” award, and advanced to the regional championshipts.
2023 Season is called “Masterpiece”, and it’s a chance to address the “A” in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, ARTS, and Math)
If you are interested in the club, please feel free to contact us.