First LEGO League:  (FLL): An Early Foundation in Engineering

FIRST LEGO League was my first real introduction to engineering. In FLL, students build a robot using a LEGO micro controller, motors and sensors to autonomously accomplish various challenges. I participated from 4th through 8th grade, and after moving on, I came back to mentor another FLL team. We weren’t the most competitive team out there, but I learned a lot—especially about engineering design and basic block-style programming, similar to LabVIEW. Since the robots are fully autonomous, a lot of thought went into creating consistent, optimized routes. FLL also has a strong emphasis on teamwork and presentation—you have to identify a real-world problem, come up with a solution, and pitch it at competitions. Looking back, a lot of the skills I first picked up in FLL have stuck with me and continue to show up in my work at the higher leagues of FIRST and throughout my college career.