Northern California FLL Tournaments, like all FIRST events, are free to attend and Open to the public!

FIRST^® LEGO^® League (FLL) is an international program, created by FIRST and LEGO, designed to get children interested in and excited about science, technology and engineering.   Every year, FIRST releases a new challenge that engages the teams in hands-on robotics design and scientific research. The theme for the challenge is different each year, allowing teams to learn about a variety of subjects. Participants, ages 9-14, form small teams of up to 10 members.    Teams can form from any group: school, scouts, religious organizations, home school groups or even groups of friends.    After the challenge has been released, teams have a limited amount of time to design, program and build their robot, and prepare an in-depth research presentation related to the challenge theme. The LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit is used to build a robot capable of completing tasks autonomously on the playing field.  Team members can use any LEGO parts to build the robot – including parts they already own.

Each team’s hard work culminates in one day, high-energy, sports-like tournaments.  During the tournaments, teams have at least 3 rounds on the competition tables to get the best score possible.   When not competing with their robots, teams give their project  presentations, are interviewed about the technical design of their robots, and also how they work as teams.

The winner of the Champion’s Award, our most prestigious award, may be eligible to participate in a variety of post-season tournament opportunities both domestic and abroad on an invitational basis.

A goal of the FLL program is to show that science and engineering can be exciting and fun by providing a spectator-friendly environment that has the feel of a sporting event combined with a rock concert!    Learn more about FIRST, the FLL program,   NorCal FLL program,  what is the challenge and this year’s 2012 Challenge details  (robot game video overview - from Scott Evans, the game designer).

If you do plan to attend, we recommend coming in time for the Opening Ceremony  and then spending some time  visiting the pit areas and asking teams about their project and their LEGO robot and then watching the robot game rounds.

Our teams, volunteers, and tournament staff are friendly and will be happy to answer your questions!

Reminder,  we would like to receive  nomination letters for two of the Special Recognition awards:  Adult Coach/Mentor and Youth Mentor awards.   We would like to receive written input _ahead of time_ from team members about their coach and/or mentor so that this can be evaluated at the championship tournament itself.

I am extending the deadline to 2pm on Saturday 3/17 to receive these.    Please submit via email to teaminfo@playingatlearning.org

Unfortunately we do not have anyone interested in fundraising by selling food/beverages to teams nor, do we have enough volunteers to manage this.   So we are sad to say that each team will be on their own to manage food.    Here is a list of nearby food places and Google Map of the area.   We will post a copy of this list and a local map in the pits.

On the positive side, the pits are in the cafeteria, so there is no issue with bringing in food/beverages.  However, on the down side,  space will be very limited and teams will have only a 6′ table for their pit.       Much of the campus has covered walkways, so we would recommend being prepared to eat outside and we hope that the weather clears up by Sunday.

As of today [March 7th], we believe we are confirmed for March 18th at Del Mar High School.   We do not have anything signed yet from the district – we are supposed to get a copy of the invoice showing all paid which has not yet been received.   Mark personally dropped off the check this morning.

The reschedule did not go as smoothly as we had hoped and costs of the event will be higher when all is completed.  We appreciate your patience while this was all being worked out.

We can now focus on confirming volunteers, teams and do look forward to an amazing tournament filled with young people that inspire us to keep going!

Update  3/2:    We believe we are almost completely confirmed for Del Mar HS for March 18th but it is not 100% as the paperwork is not completely signed off.  We are uncomfortable publishing this until completely confirmed but understand that teams/volunteers/coaches want an update.  We do hope/expect that all will be completely confirmed on Monday 3/5 at the very latest.   Jill  & Mark

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Thanks to the coaches that responded to my direct survey monkey survey over the weekend.    The 3 Sundays -  3/11, 3/18 and 3/25 – were very close with a slight edge for 3/18  – these dates were much much better for teams over the 2 Saturdays: 3/10 and 3/24.

So we will be looking at a school site in this priority:   3/18, 3/25 and then (if required) 3/11.    I  am really saddened that there was not 1 date that all teams could attend.   I am hopeful that teams will be able to accommodate as much as possible.

Will let you know when we know anything on the site front.

We have received multiple emails over the past few days asking about these items.

With regards to rubrics, they will get mailed.  We have avoided handing them out at the end of the tournament day for a couple of reasons – the primary reason is that every rubric sheet must be reviewed for appropriate comments and it would delay the closing ceremony to do this in order to hand them out before teams go home.    But a secondary reason is that coaches and parents reaction makes me want to spare the kids.   When we hand back rubrics on the same day, I have overheard (the vast majority of times, if not every time)  an adult questioning/berating a child about a specific rubric item – I have seen children go from happy/excited to sad/crying over this ; it breaks my heart.       On the jotform it had the line,  “Enter Mailing Address to send Rubrics” and this is where I will mail them.    Most likely after this weekend, we will start to free up and can start getting through each tournament’s paperwork (the rubrics are generally all together with other paperwork that is all thrown together).

With regards to awards and scores, again, these will get posted – on this site.  We want to recognize the award winners and want to include the short commentary that went along with each 1st place team that was said at the closing ceremony.

Finally on the team photos  (and other photos),  this one is just time to upload to flickr.   Again,  will happen and will fit it in over the next few weeks.

When I mentioned at your tournament about needing to engage more volunteers at a physical Playing At Learning location – it was to help with items like these.  Right now, these are difficult to hand off to someone else.  They are not in a form to be  handed off – otherwise it would be done already.

Here is the current status and progress towards getting an updated site and date :

1)  Out of 312 voters in the poll,   48% selected that they were available on Saturday March 10th  including 38  coaches.    The next most available date was Sunday Feb 26th (with 28% ) but there was just no way to make that date happen given that the schools (and districts) were closed for the week.

2)  Unfortunately,  it looks like there is no date that will work for all teams

3)  It has been difficult to separate out individual conflicts versus entire team conflicts and the “scale” of conflict ( a conflict for a few hours versus all day and what percentage of the team does the conflict affect).  We are getting many emails with impassioned pleas on why certain dates just don’t work for them (plus the many comments  added to the earlier post).   We are trying to be as compassionate as possible.

4)  The dates that are NOT being considered are the following:   (as noted earlier)  2/25, 2/26, 3/3, 3/4  PLUS  3/17, and 3/31.   We also will not be considering any date in April.

5)  At this point,  we ARE only considering the following 5 dates:   3/10, 3/11, 3/18 AND we will ADD 3/24 and 3/25.

6)  Shortly,  I will be  emailing each SV coach a direct email (based on their listed jotform email address) asking for them to fill out a surveymonkey form asking about their team’s availability on each of the 5 dates listed above.

7)  Then, on Monday 2/27  morning, we will  pick the date that has the most teams available based on the responses received.

8)  Then, we will work with a couple of school districts to get an acceptable host site – hoping to have  a host site by Tuesday or Wednesday.

We welcome your suggestions and input.

We would like to get your input on a new date for the Silicon Valley FLL Championship.   Our first choice would be Saturday March 10th to get adequate time to recruit new volunteers AND enough time to select, confirm and adapt to a new site.     The only weekend over the next month that we can not have the tournament is the first weekend of March  (3/3 – 3/4)  since that is the NorCal FTC championship tournament.

I have set up a POLL on the right side – please vote only once and based on your “role”  :   Coaches,  Team Parents,  Volunteers and other interested people like visitors.

7:15pm PST 2/23: Due to ski week closures, we have not been able to confirm dates/locations for the SV FLL Championship. We will not be able to get confirmation until Monday at the earliest and likely not until Tuesday.

8:45pm PST 2/21:  Not sure why but the poll was closed.  The closed date was set to  2/22 but looks like it  ended today.  odd.  Have just added one more day.

1:50pm PST 2/21:  I am receiving emails that suggest that every date has at least one team that just can’t make the date.  Also,  looks like I am not able to look at the Coach-only poll as meaning anything since there are more votes than competing teams – so at this point i can only look at aggregate numbers.     At this point, we need to look at “scale” of the conflict.   We will need to figure this out – so please be specific.  How many team members of the team and how long in the day is your team’s conflict.     Generally Saturdays seems to have the most conflict based on emails sent to me.  What about Sundays –  what about 3/11 or 3/18 –  what are the conflicts on those dates?

7:05pm PST  2/20:     March 10th is still the leading date  but since there is at least 1 team that can not attend….  What about the 2nd highest ranked date of 3/17 or the third rank date of 2/26?     Are there teams that CAN NOT attend either of those dates?   Again,  please add a comment below with which date(s) won’t work and please include your team number.

2:50pm PST  2/20:     March 10th is current the leading date.   If your team CAN NOT attend March 10th at all, please add a comment to this post – please include your team number.

Thanks,  Jill