We volunteered at a Lego League tournament with our coach as the tournament director. We helped do things like scorekeeping, score running, timekeeping, helping out teams, and running activities in FLL Jr. This is our first year out of FLL after being in it for 4 years and it’s awesome to find out how it all works behind the scenes. It was a blast and we hope to do it again.
Our team was invited to sell concessions at an FLL tournament in Chippewa Middle School so we could raise money for our team. We had 2 concession locations at the event, the “dollar store” and the main concessions. The dollar store was located at a table next to the performance area and had cheaper food items. The main concessions in the school cafeteria had all the lunch items and other cheaper items as well. We had fun selling concessions at the tournament and learned about things such as inventory, cost analysis, working with vendors to order food and staffing based on rush periods. It was a great way to earn money while learning skills we can use again at other events.
We went to Hayes Elementary to Demo about FIRST and engineering. During our time there we set up stations for FLL Jr. FLL, and FTC. The kids then went around each of the stations to learn more about FIRST and the different types. They got to drive our FTC robot through obstacles, program our FLL robot to complete many missions, and learn more about FLL Jr. Overall, the demo went really well. The kids loved the FTC robot and they all got driver’s licenses. Also, the kids had lots of fun learning more about FIRST.
We did a fundraiser at the Shoreview Jersey Mike’s to raise money for extra parts. All members of our team took at least two 2 – hour shifts. During the fundraiser, we also dealt with some robot problems, that we eventually fixed. It was fun talking to people and explaining how the robot worked as well as sharing the word of FIRST. People loved our robot drivers licenses (mostly the kids) and our business cards, they also seemed to like the idea of students learning engineering skills.
We were invited by Titanium Allies, FTC #10272, to demo our robot to a group of cub scouts along with FLL team BERSERK. We let the cub scouts drive our robot on a simple course. Most of the boys had fun driving the robot and enjoyed receiving their robot drivers license. It was a good way to let younger people know about FIRST.
Five members of our team went to the Chippewa Welcome Back Night to inform students and parents that FLL season is coming soon. We, along with the Brickstormers, did the demos. There were many people who were interested in FLL, we even got people to sign up. We started off by demonstrating our FLL robot and research project from the previous year. Then the Brickstormers demonstrated there magnificent robot, while we continued to show off our project.
It was fun talking to the people who were interested in FLL, we even got to talk to people who are or were on an FLL team. Many people came to the FLL table to ask questions about FLL. At the demo, I got to represent my old FLL team, Team Coding Queens. Even though we don’t FLL anymore, it was still fun to help out, it makes me look back on how I’m here in the first place.
Five members of our team went to the Slice of Shoreview to show off our robot and project for one of the last times. There was a tent for each FIRST programs there, and we all were demoing for the people that visited our corner of the Slice. On the day we went, we were the only FLL team in attendance. There were two FRC teams and many FTC teams. Over the four hours, we talked to about 87 adults and 97 kids. A lot of people were interested in FLL, which was great.
It was awesome to see so many people interested in the program, and I liked watching the FRC robots, which were right across the path from us. It would be awesome to go again next year, especially because we would be demoing an FTC robot next year.