First Lego League Jr.

Our goal with our Intro to FLL Jr. program is to not only excite and inspire young people towards amazing possibilites in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), but also to help their parents or guardians build the confidence to engage with these young people in their STEM pursuits.

For that reason, one of the requirements for participation on a Bananas Robotics FLL Jr. team is that each student (or pair of students in a sibling situation) be accompanied at all times by their own appointed responsible adult.  This could be a parent, grandparent, or even a “Big Brother/Big Sister”.  We hope, with this approach, to inspire and resource these adults with the enthusiasm to sustain these teams in their 2nd and subsequent years in FLL Jr., and eventually on to FLL.

In the end, what we have strived to do is to remove as many of the common barriers as possible that keep parents from availing themselves of an opportunity like this. The only thing we are asking of you is a small financial commitment, but more importantly, that you commit your time and enthusiasm to learning with your child.

Interested? Please discuss this opportunity with your child, and if you are both convinced you are ready to fully commit your time to this program, please continue to the application!

“Teams” will consist of up to 6 students (and their respective adults), typically grouped by proximity of their home addresses.  While FIRST technically allows students 6-10 to participate, our experience has been that the program is best suited to older 7 year olds and up, and highly ideal for 8-9 year olds, and also works well for 10 year olds with no programming or Lego robotics experience as a primer for FLL the following year.

The collection of all of the teams in the program will appropriately be known as “The Banana Bunch”.

“Coaching” 0versight (and coaches of record) will be provided by three FTC coaches, with assistance from local FLL and FTC participants.

“The Season” will begin with meetings in March, and end with an Expo in early May.  Our season’s work is contained in a 12 session notebook, a copy of which will be provided to every team member.

Our “Tech” is the Lego WeDo 2.0 Core set, with the “Mission Moon” Inspire set, all controlled by an Android tablet.  These items will be checked out to each team for the season and are the joint responsibility of the team.  (approximately $450 in value, so please exercise extreme care…) 

“Practices” will be broken up into 2 types of meetings:

• The first are group meetings (the whole bunch), run by the The High Voltage Couch Bananas and their coaches.  These meetings will be in a central location, on a Saturday, and include up to 10-12 individual teams.  These will be used to teach new material and cover questions on the specific session or sessions we are focusing on for that meeting.
• There will be between 6-8 group meetings, on a Saturday, from the start of the season to the end.  You should plan to miss NO MORE THAN ONE (for other than true emergency reasons).
• The second are team meetings (just your 6 bananas), which can be at any agreed upon (by the team parents) and approved (by us) location.  These can happen weekly  or every other week, and will be the main “work sessions” to execute on material covered in the group meetings.

“Costs” are only $50 per student, with the remainder of the expenses generously covered by a team of amazing individuals, foundations, and organizations, many of whom you’ll come to know throughout the season.

At present, the schedule is planned for 6-8 sessions, on SATURDAY from 10am-12, at Boise State University.  Our first session will be March 16th, and we will tentatively wrap up sessions by May 4.  We are coordinating with University of Idaho Extension to set an expo date for that following week or shortly thereafter in Boise.

Tentative Schedule (Saturdays 2019):

Each weekend meeting will include one or more notebook “sessions.” Each is approximately one hour in duration, and there are 12 total, so we can cover 2 in a two hour meeting.

3/16 
3/23 – RELOCATED TO BOISE MAIN LIBRARY!  Capitol Blvd – Hayes Auditorium, 10:10 am – Session 3
3/30  – ALL TEAMS GO TO FRC REGIONAL – Free event at Ford Idaho Center, Nampa (Bananas demo w/ FTC)
4/6 – Downtown Boise Library, Marion Binghan Room – Sessions 4, 5
4/13 – Downtown Boise Library, Marion Binghan Room – Sessions 6, 7
4/20 – Hatch Ballroom (BSU Student Union Building) – Sessions 8, 9
4/27 – Simplot AC Ballroom (BSU Student Union Building) – Sessions 10, 11
5/4 – (BSU) TBD – Session 12

Expo to follow

APPLICATIONS FOR 2019 are NOW OPEN!