Parent Information
The BadgerB.O.T.S. First Lego League season begins each September with the announcement of the annual challenge. This year's "Body Forward", will explore the cutting-edge world of Biomedical Engineering to discover innovative ways to repair injuries, overcome genetic predispositions, and maximize the body's potential, with the intended purpose of leading happier and healthier lives. Over 20 local teams are participated last year.
Any Dane County school team or individual student is welcome to join. Individual students join one of our 'mixed school' teams. If you want to start a team outside Dane county, we'll be happy to try to help you out also.
Commitment:
Meetings are held twice a week. Beginning teams meet Monday and Thursday evenings at Memorial High School. Some teams hold their 2nd weekly meeting on a different day, and some meet more often. We try to do all our big events on Mondays and use Thursdays as work days.
Whether a student can regularly miss parts of meetings and still have an effective team depends on team dynamics—students usually do better if they have friends on the team.
Each team needs two active adult mentor/coaches. (A single coach coordinating the team meetings is too burdensome for most people.) If your child is participating, we expect some parental help—mentor or coach a team, or help out in whatever way works best with your schedule.
Cost:
Cost is about $100 per team member (less expensive than many team sports.) We don't push the kids to fundraise. Scholarships are available.
Please consider a personal or company contribution to provide scholarships and to support the overall program. This is a fantastic kids-in-action bargain!
Tournament:
The tournament is Saturday, November 6, 2010. It is an all-day event at Memorial High School. The teams' robots perform the challenge and the students present their research to a panel of judges.
Stay Informed:
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Farm Teams:
A separate program, which we call "Farm Teams", is geared to 2nd and 3rd graders. Kids get to work with the Mindstorms kit, build what they can and try to learn as much as possible. We suggest a good size is 4 kids. We try to keep costs minimal. Contact Chris Hunt for details.