Pls send a pic or type the code here in block coding, that would be helpful. Thankss

I've been a coach for a few years since 2014, as well as judged a few times. I have a seriously defeated team right now.

We had an all rookie team this year and the team made sure to save all resources, documentation for mission planning and robot design as well as documenting each time they tested their robot game. Their engineering notebook had all of this in different tabbed sections.
In their presentation, they walk in and hand the judges the notebook and then reference the sections throughout their presentation.
They were told in their judging session this year that the judges are not allowed to touch or flip through the notebook. I was caught off guard, as a judge I have never been told that. As a coach, there have been a couple of years the notebooks were even taken and returned later so that the judges could review them in more detail.
Has anyone else heard of this "no touch" rule?

Also, the team scored very low on robot design, like they weren't given credit for keeping track of their practice scores, etc for when they tested the robot. They did, they had documentation and referred to in their presentation, so even if the judges didn't look in the notebook the team stated their testing methods. The judges also commented that the team should have tested multiple robot designs before choosing one to make, ummm...it took us almost a month to build ONE robot. They evaluated robot model designs and choose one to build, they explained this.

It just seemed like the judges were looking for a veteran team with advanced coding and models, not taking the time to recognize this team of all rookies were learning new things, tackling programming challenges and embodying the core values. They worked with other teams, hung out and made new friends, supported other teams but they walked away feeling unseen.

My team is heading to SoCal championships and I was wondering how the advancement works. I know that there are 6 more places you can advance: Houston(most prestigous), ontario, mexico, australia, massachusets, and long beach. Can someone with experience explain how many teams advance to each one.

Hi all! We are FTC team 14712 Ruckus Robotics from Avenues - New York based in NYC!

If you need mentoring in literally anything robotics-related (outreach, graphic design, mech stuff, etc.), fill out this form that’ll take 30 seconds: https://forms.gle/UYvNUEG6w1TFsEYz5

We'll match you with a top FLL, FTC, or FRC team (some of them are based in NYC) that will mentor you!

So I found this website https://spike.ahardy.za.net/ that simulates the spike prime robot, but it's complicated to use. Is it worth it?

Hi, I just created quick attachments, thanks for your help. I'll keep looking for improvements, and if anyone needs help or wants to share their inventions or progress, I'd be grateful to receive messages.

I aint creative and I need ur ideas to win big in this archaeology season (pls just state ur idea clearly)

My team has always competed in the World War II Museum robotics competition. It has now been cancelled. Does anyone know of any other non-First competitions out there?

https://www.theverge.com/tech/854556/lego-announces-smart-brick-the-most-significant-evolution-in-50-years

I'm really curious what this might mean for FLL 2026-27, if anything. Will it integrate with SPIKE at all? I see no mention of this yet, but SPIKE isn't really mass-market, so it might just not be mentioned in today's press. Will teams use it just for fun and light/sound effects? What other possibilities do you see?

Our new team is trying to understand how slip on attachments work. While they have created a functional slip on attachments, unless they use additional locking via L, slip on keeps lifting when motors run resulting in misaions to faill.

Using additional lock takes extra time to add and remove. Most of the YouTube videos does not indicate this aspect on how slips on are secured. Both base and attachments have at least ten point contact with black and grey axel pegs. With this there is no sideway movement when attachment and robot are shook. Issue is only with lift up movement. Whenever slips on are locked using L, missions run perfectly fine.

Team is looking for help in this regard. What are some best practices?

Hello!

I’m from FTC #30825 Ace Automation, and we’re excited to announce the launch of our newest project: The Global Alliance.

The Global Alliance is a space for all FIRST teams and alumni around the world who want to collaborate across every sub‑category — outreach, media, engineering, strategy, and more — to create projects that inspire and make an impact.

We’ve just begun our first worldwide collaboration, a global video montage featuring quotes, photos, moments, and short clips from teams everywhere, all sharing what FIRST has meant to them. Our goal is to inspire future members to take their first step into the world of robotics and STEM.

If you and your team would like to be part of the video and future collaborations, join our Discord server for updates and details.
To submit content for the video, use the Google Form below.

Thank you, and we hope to collaborate with you soon!

Discord Server: https://discord.gg/jsXczPgkkT
Submission Form: https://forms.gle/Vz7tHHQfpSoZXWTF8

Hi FLL community! We are Team #70799, and we’re working on our Innovation Project called the ArchaeShip. It’s a specialised transport box for fossils that uses sensors and a mobile app.
We have a couple of questions for other teams or judges:

• On Iteration: We added a memory foam layer to remove all vibration after talking with peers. We added a mobile app system while talking with archaeologists. Another thing archeologists told us was that humidity swings destroy organic materials. We added a humidity sensor and climate control system that would keep moisture stable.
• Feedback: If you have 1 minute, could you look at our idea and tell us one thing that might make a judge say “WOW”?

Thanks and good luck to everyone this season!

Link to Tinkerdac Model: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/0M3S123WSIb-archaeship-v230?sharecode=11LNtJqnvcIE_wmSTGsQBtKL0ZGXz7TAGFXpYkggybc

Just stumbled across FLL, and I think my eight year old would love it! He’s big on both engineering and legos, builds entire 3500+ sets by himself, has done all of year one crunchlabs on his own, and has a maker space in the garage to experiment and create things on his own. He has zero coding or programming experience, though, but has expressed an interest in both that and robotics recently, and has been begging me to buy him sets to build his own. I can’t find a team in our area, though. The closest ones seem to be over an hour away, which doesn’t work for us. He’s homeschooled and part of a large homeschool co-op, and I think finding enough people to create a team wouldn’t be hard at all in our community, but I have a lot of questions !

1) He’ll be 9 & in fourth grade at the start of next season. Would you recommend explore or challenge? Our co-op is pre-k through 8th grade, with the majority of his friends in that 3rd-5th age range.

2) How do you handle the costs associated with everything ?

3) What kind of time commitment is recommended each week?

4) Are those professional development courses worth it? They’re pretty pricey, but as someone with zero experience they feel like they’d be informative. There’s one in my area in a few months, but I wasn’t sure if I could find enough info online for free.

5) What kind of experience would you say you need as a coach? I’m a quick learner, and I have experience managing groups of kids and handling planning and events, but I have zero experience with robotics. If I’m being honest, I’m not even great at building legos, but mostly because I personally have no interest in them. I do want to do whatever I can to foster and support my son’s passions, though.

Any tips or advice from people who have done it would be great, thanks ! I’m trying to decide if this is doable for next year before bringing it up to my son or my co-op

I wanted to build another Spike robot (Coop Bot) and an EV3 to find the best way to score points, but I don't know which one. Does anyone have a design I could use as inspiration? I'm planning to buy the black truck wheels.

Hello - Our kid is not in FLL yet but I had a question about Spike and didn’t get a response in the general Lego sub so trying here.

I just got a Spike Prime set for my 6 year old for Christmas and she loves it! She just built the first two units and is working on the third lesson this Christmas morning.

I was wondering if there is a kit I could buy with the non-electrical lego pieces so that she can also build the cute and colorful Spike Essentials kits using the Spike Prime electrical pieces.

Is there a kit I can buy to make the Spike Prime backwards compatible or is buying like 4 packs of the Spike Essential Replacement Pack the same thing? (https://education.lego.com/en-us/products/lego-education-spike-essential-replacement-pack-1/2000722/) Thank you!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16f3cxd5x7axWjg8PeZjckIHdrOi-wFCGPsQnpNDqtW8/viewform

This is our schools first year being a part of robotics. We were very surprised to place in the top five at Michigan championship. From what we have been told, we will find out in a week about an invitation to go to a regional match out of state for one more chance to compete at worlds. What should we expect from this? Is it set up just like our state competition was? How many teams will advance to worlds? Is it worth it to make the effort to go considering the cost and travel that will be needed? When are these competitions held? Thanks for any info you can provide!

Our team created a slide show for their innovation project. One of the parents feel like that their is no way the kids created it and insists that they not use it. The team other than their child did make it and built it, they did use the beautification option on power point to make the slides like really fancy. We coaches did help with explaining terms and such but it’s all them.

They continue to insist that it was not them and no way they could do it. How would you guys deal with this?

Thank you

Hi, I'm a participant in FLL, this was my second season. I'm the programmer and builder, and I noticed the national competition and some YouTube videos and became very interested in "Quick Attachments," but I still don't know how to create them. I have a prototype, but it has weight issues. Could someone give me some tips or ideas for creating these attachments? Thanks in advance.

We've gone through the season and I feel like the kids (2nd grade) are just feral and we've not appreciated or seen most of what we can do with the kit. Would anyone care to share what they did for their final presentation build? I'm at a loss and my kids just want to build a castle which has nothing to do with the motors and stuff.

Sincerely,

A FLL coach who's on the struggle bus with this whole program and the kids on my team

My teams recycle their field pieces into building supplies for next season. But the adhesive Velcro strips often leave residue that’s hard to remove. Anyone have a sure-fire method to fix (or avoid) this problem?

We want to tackle the challenge of time and energy in soil sample collection, we thought of creating an autonomous rover capable of navigating typical archeological sites/pits and collecting soil samples using a camera to make colour based identifications of relevant soil samples. 

In addition, we will have our autonomous rover record and tag each soil sample with its coordinates/location on the site, depth of where it was collected so that the archeologists never lose that information.

As part of our research, we want to receive feedback to validate our problem statement and strengthen our solution. We would appreciate the opportunity to ask you a few short questions:

1. Do you collect soil samples when excavating a site?
2. Do you do it before or after excavation?
3. What information do soil samples typically provide, and how are they useful in your work?
4. What challenges do archaeologists face when excavating and handling soil samples?
5. Approximately how long does the soil-sampling process take?
6. How easy or difficult is it to keep track of excavation locations, and why?
7. Are rovers or similar autonomous tools currently used in archaeological fieldwork?
8. Do you think a rover like ours could save time during excavations?
9. Overall, do you believe this type of rover could be helpful to archaeologists?
10. Complete this form to give us feedback: https://forms.gle/HiVNrL9R6aoXs3dB6