2006 FLL Summary

Our second year mentoring multiple FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams. 

The program expands to...

8 teams...

Much less chaos...

More learning of the ropes...

The program is a huge success.  Not only are young people begging to get involved in LEGO Robotics, they are asking about what they should be doing in school to get ready for the high school robotics program.  Perfect... just the impact we were looking for.

The biggest transition this year??   Hosting the Badgerland Regional tournament for the first time.  Once again, we thought to ourselves, "How hard could it be?"   After much blood (not too much), sweat (lots), and tears (but not by the competitors!  They all had a blast...) we ran a very smooth day that was enjoyed by 23 teams.

Of our 8 teams, 1 team earned the regional Judge's Award and 1 team earned the Champions Award.  Both teams earned the right to go on to the State Championship.  Congratulations to the Nano Nerds and the Huegel Atoms Family... awesome work on the NanoQuest challenge!!

At the State Championship both teams rocked the house.  The Atoms Family placed highly with the best Research Interview score in the tournament.  Their excellent performance across the board earned them a solid ranking by tournaments end.  The Nano Nerds however, edged them out by a narrow margin with strong performances in all four judging categories to take the State Judge's Award.  Both teams are already gearing up for next year!

As a surprise for all of the teams, and due to the generosity of Sony Media, we were able to provide every team participating in our first annual Badgerland Regional with a copy of Movie Studio software.  This $2500 gift from Sony Media should make it a snap for every FLL team to have an entry for the new Video award next year.

Our biggest challenge??

The program has been run exclusively on Madison's west side.  This makes it easy in terms of logistics and recruitment... that is the same "easy" as noted above.  However, our goal for the program to provide a recruiting mechanism for the high school team, and to provide opportunities across the school district, and to our most at risk and underrepresented groups of participants, calls for an expansion of the program to Madison's east side. 

Although it means explosive growth to 12 to 16 teams for next season (that is over 12% of the overall state FLL program!), we believe that the fund-raising and logistical challenges are worth the effort.

So look out next year... because here comes even more BadgerBOTS FLL teams!

Copyright 2007, BadgerBOTS Robotics, Team 1306