Investing in our Future: Volunteering for the FIRST Lego League
A year ago when Randy Lennox, the tireless organizer of the Marlborough, MA FIRST Lego Qualifier competition invited us to get involved as volunteers, we jumped at the chance. What better way to encourage young people interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math). This year’s event was bigger and better than ever.
Many of you may be familiar with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) through its FIRST Robotics competition. Founded in 1992, FIRST started in New Hampshire with just under 30 robotics teams competing in a high school gym. Today its programs (FIRST Lego Leagues, FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics) has 400,000 kids participating world-wide.
The FIRST Lego League (FLL) we are involved with is a great gateway organization for younger kids ranging from 4th-8th grade, as they work to solve a real-life problem through the design, build and programming of an autonomous robot. Each robot competes by completing a series of timed tasks on an obstacle course.
The Project portion this year addressed the challenges of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico by having the kids learn about the science behind finding, transporting, using and disposing of water.
Finally, each team must know and demonstrate FLL’s core values throughout their entire involvement, from development of their robot to how they interact on competition day.
John Galt volunteers served as judges to observe, question and score on the following core values:
- We are a team.
- We do the work to find solutions with guidance from coaches and mentors.
- We know our coaches and mentors don’t know all the answers, we learn together.
- We honor the spirit of healthy competition.
- What we discover is more important than what we win.
- We share our experiences with others.
- We display Gracious Professionalism and “Coopertition” in everything we do.
- We have FUN!
Come to think of it, these core values are awesome for grown-ups too!
We definitely followed the last core value and had FUN working with such smart and energetic kids. We can’t wait to come back next year!
We encourage you to check out firstinspires.org to learn more.
