FLL and FTC Teams

Age/Grade Ranges of FLL (FIRST LEGO League) and FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge)

These are the FIRST in Michigan guidelines as explained to us by FIRST in Michigan. Please note that these are slightly different than the national FIRST guidelines.

FLL

• Upper elementary; roughly grades 4-6

  • Based on our experience with the tasks and projects within FLL, we agree that 4th grade is the earliest that makes sense for FLL

• Maximum of 10 on a team

FTC

• Middle School grades (as defined by the district; some are 6-8, 7-8, 7-9).

  • FIRST in Michigan defines “Middle School” as the grades between Elementary School and High School, regardless of the names the school uses (Middle School, Junior High School, etc.)

  • FIRST in Michigan applies this definition of eligibility to all students based on where that student lives, regardless of whether or not that student attends the public school or if the student’s team is school-based or is a private club

• Unlimited team size; 10-15 recommended due to small robot size (the robot must be able to fit into an 18"x18"x18" cube, so it's hard to get more than 3 people's hands on the robot at one time)

  • Our team feels that 10 is a better maximum number

Team Mentor Requirements - Defined by FIRST

Youth Protection Program

http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/youth-protection-program

The purpose of the FIRST Youth Protection Program (YPP) is to provide Coaches, Mentors, Volunteers, employees, others working in the FIRST programs, team members, and parents/guardians with information, guidelines, and procedures to create safe environments for everyone participating in the FIRST programs.

Coaches/Lead Mentors

There must be a minimum of two (2) screened Lead Coaches/Mentors per team that know the YPP safety measures and oversee all of the team’s activities. (FLL teams may consist of a minimum of two (2) and a maximum of ten (10) children; FTC teams may consist of a minimum of two (2) and a maximum of fifteen (15) children.)

The screening process is at no cost to the coaches and can be done by going to the “Go to Screening” section under TIMS. The approval process takes about 16-36 hours. The approved screening is good for 3 years.

Other Volunteers

Coaches are to use their discretion on which adults involved with the team should also have a screening performed (i.e. adults who are ‘regularly involved’ – 30% or more of the time). Those adults must go through training so they can recognize situations that may pose a threat to team member safety.

In the case of walk-on volunteers or sponsors’ employees/mentors: They should be handled with supervision and not assigned to work alone with students.

Student mentors under the age of 18 do not require a screening, but instead should be monitored by the Lead Coaches at all activities.

Parents

At the start of the season, coaches must make each parent/guardian aware of the Guidelines for Parents and advise them to read the guidelines carefully. An official Parent Notification form (found in the YPP Guidelines) should be sent by the coach to the parent within 30 days of the child joining. It will confirm their student is invited to be a part of the team, provide an overview of who will be interacting with their child, and ask that they read the Parent Guidelines.

Safety Meeting

Coaches should understand the Code of Conduct, including how to deal with Code Violations. A safety meeting must be conducted by the coaches at the start of the season to review guidelines and ensure everyone involved understands the YPP Code. The meeting can be combined with the season start-up meeting or done separately. A separate meeting for parents/adults only may be advisable. Guidance for conducting these Team Safety Meetings is available on the FTC website.

Reporting Misconduct

All adults working with the team should continually monitor each others’ behavior and safety practices. If anyone working with a FIRST Team, a parent, or team member believes that a Lead Coach/Mentor’s judgment on a safety matter is not sound, the individual can contact the Youth Protection Department (YPD) anonymously if they cannot otherwise resolve the matter.

Forms

The following forms can be found in the FIRST YPP Program Guide and should be kept on hand and updated/used accordingly:

• Report of Medical Incident

• Report of Safety Concern/Non-Medical Incident

• Tracking and Documenting Youth Clearance

• Volunteer Application

• Notification of Guidelines for Parents

• Team Travel Consent Form

Team Member and Mentor Requirements - Defined by Your Team

We recommend that you formalize some aspects of your team’s structure. Every team handles this differently and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. We’ll tell you our approach;

The goal of our internal requirements is to set out in clear language what we feel is a good basis for how our team will approach everything we do so that everyone involved knows and acknowledges this foundation. Feel free to review our document and pick and choose what sounds good to you.

Fundraising

Your team’s fundraising efforts can be as simple as collecting returnable bottles and cans, as involved as a marketing campaign to attract multiple corporate sponsors, or anything in between.

The FIRST site includes much more information about fundraising in the FTC and FRC portions of its site than it does when discussing FLL. Much of the fundraising information described below and on the FIRST site can also apply to FLL Teams, so FLL teams are encouraged to review all the resources.

Fundraising Resources from FIRST

You can get to the following FIRST resources via the FTC website’s Team Resources section under the heading of Marketing and Fundraising

FTC Fundraising Guide

This is a downloadable document that provides an overview of team funding and a sample letter that can be used as a template.

FIRST Fundraising Toolkit

This is a separate page that contains downloadable documents on the following topics:

• Fundraising Plan: First step towards completing a fundraising & business plan.

• Community Analysis: Helps teams gain a better understanding of their community and the opportunities available locally to them.

• Team Documentation: Teams learn how to create documentation about their program with resources created to give examples of team documentation and sponsor packets.

• Organizing a Presentation: Helps students develop presentation skills to be prepared when speaking with sponsors for the first time.

• Maintaining Sponsor Relations: How to build long-term partnerships with sponsors.

• 501(c)3 Pros, Cons & Alternatives: Learn if this option is right for your team.

• Alternative Methods of Fundraising: Highlights creative ways to fundraise through crowd sourcing websites and grant writing.

• Fundraising Examples & Best Practices: Shares examples of successful fundraising ideas created by veteran teams.

Sponsorship

After grants and local fundraising efforts, sponsorship is the primary method of acquiring funds for your team. When seeking sponsors, it can help to provide them with a structured description of FIRST, your team, your needs, and how sponsorship can benefit the sponsor.

• Introduction: FIRST Overview; Team History; Mission Statement

• Goals: Team Milestones; Goals for Upcoming Season; Projected Hours and Team Commitment

• Sustainability: Budget, including incoming funding and estimated cost breakout; how team members are selected and trained

• Outreach and Recognition: Community activities; Awards

• Resources: FIRST links; Team links

Wikis, Websites, and Document Sharing

There are many solutions out there. Here’s what we have used and found helpful. We do not have any affiliation with the services we mention below and do not receive any sort of compensation from them.

Wikis

Sites like www.wikispaces.org allow you to create a set of web pages and collections of images and videos that can be edited by anyone on your team. One of your mentors acts as the administrator and controls editing-level access to your team members, parents, and mentors. You can make your site public or private.

Enabling all members to edit the site is especially helpful for FLL teams as they work on their research projects, and presentations. While the wikispaces.org service can be used by both FLL and FTC teams, we definitley recommend it for FLL teams due to the ease of use of the editing features. Several of our FTC team’s students and mentors used wikispaces.org when they were involved with FLL and were happy with its functions and capabilities.

Wikispaces.org accounts are free for teachers to set up. Accounts for non-teachers can be set up for as little as $5 per month.

Websites

Services such as Google Sites provide many of the same features as described above in the wikis. The main difference is integration with Google Drive (discussed below) and the user interface. Our mentors feel that the wikispaces editing interface is better suited to 4th and 5th graders than is the one for Google Sites.

Document Sharing

Services such as Google Drive and Dropbox, that allow shared access to documents can be quite valuable. In addition to shared access and editing, they provide the security of off-site backup, which means that if one team member’s computer dies, the team’s files will still be accessible.

Safety

This section is about day-to-day safety in addition to what is mandated by the Youth Protection Program (discussed above). In short: Have a plan and make sure everyone knows about it.

FLL and FTC

• First-Aid kit

• Emergency contact information

• Medical consent forms

• Travel consent forms

• Allergy awareness: epi-pen, etc. as appropriate

• Fire extinguisher

FTC

• Safety goggles for all team members and mentors and for all attendees at tournaments

• Training and supervision for all power tools

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