FIRST™ LEGO™ League �2025-2026

FLL Alumni #33274

• 5 years, FIRST Championship team, one of top AZ teams

FRC Team #6413

• 3rd year, FIRST Championship award-winning team

FIRST Volunteer

• Multiple regionals, state championship every season for 4 yrs

Founded FLL program at BASIS Chandler

• Coached over 100 students across 4 years

Director of FLL Summer Camp

• From no experience to a fully functional robot in 5 days - a fun and engaging crash course/introduction to robotics for kids!

About the Speaker

Helen Ling

What’s FIRST ^®?

FIRST is more than a robot

FOR

INSPIRATION AND

RECOGNITION OF

SCIENCE AND

TECHNOLOGY

FIRST ^® Impact: More Than Robots^SM

STEM Awareness, Skills and Intent

• Increase the number of students who pursue post-secondary education and careers in STEM-related fields and industries

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

• Inspire youth to become leaders and innovators in their field and society

21^st Century Work-Life Skills

• Enable young people to develop valuable, transferrable, real-world skills, including: teamwork, leadership, creative problem solving, critical thinking, time & project management, and communication/presentation skills

What’s FIRST ^®?

It’s a competitive sport.

It’s More Than Robots^SM.

It’s a life experience.

It’s opportunity.

It’s community.

It’s amazing.

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Teams of 2-10 kids build LEGO^® robots and develop research projects based on real-world scientific challenges.

2025/2026 Season

FLL Teams are challenged to…

• Create innovative solutions to challenges facing today’s scientists and professionals
• Strategize, design, build, program and test an autonomous robot using Challenge-related model using LEGO ^® and Spike Prime ^® technology
• Apply real-world math and science concepts
• Develop career and life skills
• Become involved in their local and global community

SEASON OVERVIEW

AUGUST

Season kickoff! Analyze documents, make a long-term plan; big picture goals!

SEPT-NOV

Season prep, achieve goals through actionable steps, stay on track & enjoy the process!

NOV/DEC

Regional Qualifying Events (many locations)

Show off your hard work and have fun!

JANUARY

State Championship @ ASU!

Amazing opportunity whether you compete, volunteer, or spectate.

and more…

Time Commitment

• Be prepared to meet at least once per week from Mid-August through January (2-10 hrs/week)
• Like any program, the more time you invest in helping your team will add to your team’s success

​

• Time Spent in developing key skills
• Programming (Scratch or Python)
• Mechanical Design (CAD)
• Engineering Design Process
• Research and Development
• Data Analysis and Communications
• Marketing and Leadership
• Time/Project Management and Presentation

FLL is…

ROBOT PERFORMANCE

(SCORED)

CORE VALUES (OBSERVED)

RESEARCH (JUDGED)

ROBOT DESIGN (JUDGED)

25%

25%

25%

25%

100% a valuable learning experience!

FIRST CORE VALUES AND

ENGINEERING DESIGN PROCESS

Robot played autonomously on a �4’ x 8’ field to solve as many missions as possible in 2:30

ROBOT GAME

Robot Game

• 2:30, as many “launches” as desired
• Must start from & return to home before touching robot, can exchange attachments in home area
• Penalty if robot needs rescuing!
• 4 robot “operators” per team (2 per launch area)
• Scoring
• The END of the match is what gets scored
• At competition, 3-4 rounds are played, your score is based on highest scoring round
• Tables are organized in pairs with two teams competing across from each other, but
• Study rules CAREFULLY

Judged Categories

Robot Design, Project, (Core Values)

Team meets with a panel of judges�for each category

10 minutes with panel of judges �Usually 5 min for presentation, 5 min for Q&A

Judges fill out rubrics for each team in each category

​

Robot Design Judge

Judging of mechanical and programming design of team's robot

Panel of judges will interview the team and want to see demonstrations of robot capabilities

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Robot Design Judge Tips

Focus on design process used to create robot and attachments

During judging, let the team members least involved in robot construction drive the robot

Comment your code! Ready to explain the code to the judges

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Innovation Project

Choose a topic related to current year’s theme

Research the topic�Create an innovative solution that helps Share the solution with others

At competition, present research and solution to a panel of judges

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Project Key to Success

Clearly state problem being addressed

Document research and sharing with others

• Bibliography
• Interviews
• Presentations

Perform some critical analysis of solution Cost, benefit, feasibility

You only have 5 minutes to present, so use it wisely (avoid fancy technologies!)

​

Core Values

Central component of FIRST LEGO League:

• We are a team.
• We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors.
• We know our coaches and mentors don't have all the answers; we learn together.
• We honor the spirit of friendly competition.
• What we discover is more important than what we win.
• We share our experiences with others.
• We display Gracious Professionalism® and Coopertition® in everything we do.
• We have FUN!

​

Core Value Judge

Judges interview team on how they are integrating FLL Core Values into their activities

Core Values includes interaction with other teams, professionals, and community

Core Values are judged throughout the tournament, if a team does not exhibit core values at tournament, they may be disqualified to win any awards.

​

Awards and Advancement

Teams must participate in all four areas to be eligible for an award or advancement

Judges use rubrics to determine which teams receive awards

Robot Performance awards based solely on Robot Game scores

Judged awards are based on multiple criteria

Teams can win only one judged award

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Qualifier Awards:

Judged awards:

1st place Champion's

2nd place Champion's

Core Values

Robot Design

Project

Judges Award

Local Award

Robot Performance:

• 1st Place Robot Performance
• 2nd Place Robot Performance

Advance to State Championship

Top teams advance to State Championship

Team must be in top 40% of Robot Game scores and rank highly in all other categories

Number of teams advancing depends on size of qualifier, number of qualifiers, and size of regional championship

Winning an award doesn't guarantee advancement

​

Understand the Roles

Role of the Coach: Guide the process, but don’t do the work. The coach is not meant to have all the answers. You are a guide through the process. You facilitate meetings and help find resources. You can teach students skills but you do not solve the Challenge for them. The best coaches ask a lot of questions to help students find their own answers.

Role of the Mentor: Provide expertise in a specific area. Mentors are experts in a field - it could be an expert related to programming, building a prototype, creating a webpage, or something else. Like a coach, their role is to provide knowledge when needed, but not to complete the work. Youth mentors (especially those with prior FIRST LEGO League experience) should also know the difference between doing the work and mentoring.

Role of the Parent: Encourage and support the team as needed. Parents might provide snacks, get tshirts printed, buy poster boards, or organize transportation on a field trip. They support the student and the coach. Parents can advocate for their student, but also need to trust the coach. Parents may also be able to help facilitate conflicts or any discipline/performance issue with regards to their child on the team.

FLL is for everyone!

Roles of Students in an FLL Team

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Team Captain: Mgmt of the project and robot game

Designer: creates innovative designs for solutions to be discussed with the team

Researchers: investigate ideas and find relevant research from different sources

Program Manager: focuses on time management and events

Communicator: write scripts and prepares presentations.

Builders: build robot and mission models

Testers: design test strategy and analyze test results.

Mission strategist: analyze the robot game rule and leads team strategy discussions on which missions to attempt.

Coders: operate and creates programs for the robot game.

Lawyers: Study the rule book and understand the rule inside out.

�Calling for all Parents and Guardians�

• ▲  Serving as a Mentor
• ▲  Planning and holding fundraisers.
• ▲  Leading team-building activities.
• ▲  Planning field trips.
• ▲  Providing a place for your team to meet.
• ▲  Making travel arrangements.
• ▲  Or one of the most important tasks – planning snacks so your team never runs out of fuel!

So, What is FIRST?

RESOURCES

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helenjling@gmail.com

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ASU FLL website

FIRST website

Competition Format

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