Saturday Competitions (From OBTA to FLL)

 When I was a young person, I used to be a competitive baton twirler. Eventually, I graduated to becoming a baton twirling coach. Competitions were held on the weekend. We'd pack all our costumes, equipment, and paraphernalia and drive to Kitchener or whatever city was hosting an Ontario Baton Twirling Association (OBTA) sponsored event.

This Saturday, I had flashbacks to my baton twirling days, because I was one of the coaches that escorted our school's First Lego League (FLL) team to their qualifying meet at David and Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute. This is our school's first year participating in the challenge competition and it's intense! Registered teams must program a robot to complete as many missions related to the year's theme - FLL Canada describes it more succinctly: "building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface". There's also a presentation component to the event; students need to research an issue related to the theme, come up with innovative technological solutions, and share their process and findings in front of a judge. This year's theme was "Submerged".

Our school's lead coach is Matthew Malisani. He is a font of knowledge and expertise. His prior experience as a FLL coach and judge really helped us understand how and what we had to complete. Matthew was much more conscientious than I was because he would read every word of the five-page email updates we'd receive and studied the Robot Game Rulebook to ensure we knew what time limits we had or what actions could disqualify us or reduce our point acquisition. (Before you think I was just a barnacle or a hanger-on, I contributed with my teacher-librarian skills and networking abilities; I helped the students research their project, connect with an expert they consulted with about the issue, and assisted them with polishing their presentation with props, phrases, and many rehearsals.) I even made them some swag to wear as part of our team spirit that fit with our research theme.

I've used the word intense already but I'll repeat it again - it's an intense process! The robot performance match is a 2.5 minute timed process. Team members have no time to dilly-dally. They must put their robot through their paces and get as many tasks completed in that short period of time. Our team, AMPS Robotics, have been working together since the second week of school. As the competition date drew closer (and especially after several of us were done with our twice-a-week choir practices to prepare for Remembrance Day), the team met every day at lunch to work. Matt informed us that there were teams that have been working for a lot longer. There are teams that aren't associated with schools that schedule all-day sessions on the weekend to prepare and practice. 

Participating in FLL isn't cheap either. Matt correctly pointed out that equivalent school sports competitions are expensive in terms of the teacher release time, jerseys, and space. For FLL, it costs money to register a team, purchase the year's thematic kit, and build a table. This doesn't include any additional items that help supplement the presentation or care for the competitors, like paying for their pizza lunch the day of the event.

We wanted to have realistic expectations for our students. Our team is relatively young. The Challenge category is for children ages 9-14 and our team of eight students consists of two in Grade 4, three in Grade 5, and three in Grade 6. At Saturday's competition, there were 28 schools and 43 teams participating. Our hope was that the students would score some points (because it is possible to have a negative total at the end of a match) and not be in the bottom third of the pack. We also wanted our students to have a positive experience at the event - have fun!

Our students exceeded our expectations from beginning to end. First of all, everyone arrived on time for their early 7:00 am pick-up at the school.

The main motto of these FLL events is "gracious professionalism". It's a competition but teams must be kind to each other and to internal members of their own team. Our students were wonderful to each other. In between matches, they played board games with each other and had fun. (Below is a photo of them playing Spot It together.)

They kept calm under pressure and made a point of tidying up their area and plugging in the robot to keep it charged.

The students were delighted to see our principal visit them at the competition and some members who were reluctant to be at the table for the timed mission portion actually relented and joined in. 

We didn't enter the room when the students did their presentation. We were allowed, but Matt recommended that we stay out, because if things went south, then they could problem-solve independently. When our students exited the room after their 30 minute session, they were smiling. They reported that the judges had many nice things to say about their project. Big thanks to Jessica Roberts from York University for answering our students' questions about noise pollution in the ocean! They wore the ear muffs I made them (to fit the theme of reducing noise) and they said the judges were tickled with all the various props they brought to help each other out, like the hula hoops to prevent each other from wandering away during the talk! (The photo below is of the students practicing on our own mat in the "pit area".)

The crowds watching the action got thicker as the day went on. Our kids started to get a bit tired, but they persevered. 

We stayed for the awards ceremony, not expecting to receive anything, but because it's the polite thing to do. Out of 43 teams, we placed 17th, which was an excellent showing. Imagine our surprise when our team was called as a prize winner! We were awarded the Rising All-Star Award for the team that showed the most potential.

The kids were happy and delighted with this recognition. As we gathered our things for the drive back to north Scarborough, many of them talked about re-joining and what they could do next year. Matt will probably start next year's team in May so that we have even more time to get ready. Congratulations to every team that participated, regardless of the end result. Despite our worries about the organization of the event (i.e. Why are we still receiving invoice notices when we paid over a month ago? Why wasn't our team allocated a table in the pit area? Why does FLL make it so hard for TDSB to pay for registration?), the event ended up running relatively smoothly and the young future engineers and scientists really enjoyed putting their robots through their paces. Healthy competition can be motivating and invigorating! Best of luck to those advancing to the provincial competition in January. It won't be us, but big thanks to our team and their families: EM, EM, JY, JY, AC, LT, SZ and LZ.