First Lego League, by Knut

First Lego League is a robotics program. In it you are supposed to use the Lego Mindstorms robots to get missions done on the mat.

 Also, every year there is a theme. This year’s theme is biomedical engineering. The missions on the mat always have something to do with the theme.

 The second part of FLL (First Lego League) is the presentation. In it you have to find a problem that has something to do with that year’s theme and also a solution for it. In the third part, the judges ask you questions about how you made your robot, how you made your presentation, and about how you thought of your solution.

The problem we selected for our presentation is that concussions are hard to diagnose. Our solution is a concussion kit that has many different ways to test for concussion symptoms. We presented our idea in the format of a skit, “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed.” In this skit four monkeys get concussions but our concussion kit shows that the fifth monkey doesn’t have a concussion.

When we were preparing for the robot game, we split our team into three sub-teams, one for the part of the mat that is close to base, one for the part of the mat that is the farthest from base, and one for the area right in-between the two. In each of the sub-teams we had a head builder, a head programmer, and a head risk manager. The three head builders built attachments to help with the missions. The three head programmers programmed the robot to do the missions. The three head risk managers made sure that everything is in place when we start the missions.

At competition our skit went well, and we answered most of the judge’s questions. We had a few problems with the robot but we were still among the eight who made it to state. I hope we do well there too!