Eagle Robotics
Flat Rock Middle School participates in a robotics program through FIRST. For students in grades 4th-8th the program is called, FIRST LEGO League Challenge (FLL). To learn more about FLL, click here.
About our award winning Eagle Robotics program.
It is NOT all about coding and building LEGO robots. A robotics team cannot be successful made up of 9 kids who only want to code and build robots.
Robotics includes the following: coding, design, imagination, building, research, homework, teamwork, presentations in front of judges, crafts, team costumes, project boards, creativity, website design, public speaking, memorization, performance in a skit, winning, and Saturday competitions (December, January and possibly February).
We tell you this to let you know that robotics will be a lot of hard work, it's an academic activity (not really a club) and there is the expectation that your children come to meetings prepared to work as a part of a team and sometimes complete homework. It’s both fun and stressful but such a rewarding experience for all of us, it’s why we keep returning to coach every year.
Coach Melissa Lohr & Coach Darryl Hutchinson
Super Powered: Champion's Award at the West Georgia Regionals
2019 FLL City Shaper Season. Team SAFE, 2nd place State Championship.
Creative: teams dream up new solutions to real world problems, put together presentations, design project displays, design robot attachments and more.
Respectful: to coaches, fellow team members and to our meeting space and shared robot game board.
Behaved: students who can focus on their task and not be a disruption to the team.
Available: has to have the time to attend after school practices (3-4/week), have transportation home and be able to attend up to 3 Saturday competitions.
What makes a great team?
It's comprised of students who bring different talents, knowledge and abilities to the group. So what type of students are we looking for?
Self-Motivated: no experience in robotics is necessary, just a willingness to learn and the drive to figure things out.
Works well with others: students don’t get to pick their team, but they do have to work with them. The ability to work with diverse personalities is a must.
Creative: teams dream up new solutions to real world problems, put together presentations, design project displays, design robot attachments and more.
Respectful: to coaches, fellow team members and to our meeting space and shared robot game board.
Behaved: students who can focus on their task and not be a disruption to the team.
Available: has to have the time to attend after school practices (3-4/week), have transportation home and be able to attend up to 3 Saturday competitions.
FIRST Core Values.
Everything we do in robotics should reflect our understanding and commitment to FLL's six principles.
Discovery: We explore new skills and ideas.
Innovation: We use creativity and persistence to solve problems.
Impact: We apply what we learn to improve our world.
Inclusion: We respect each other and embrace our differences.
Teamwork: We are stronger when we work together.
Fun: We enjoy and celebrate what we do!
Research Project.
Every year teams are tasked with solving a problem based on the theme of the season. Student's must research the problem, come up with solution that doesn't already exist, research all details of the solution, build a prototype, connect with professionals for feedback and make necessary changes, make a project board, and create a 5 minute presentation to share with judges at competition.
Robot Game.
The game portion of competition is a 2.5 minute robot run to score as many points as possible. If we aren't working on our research project we are building attachments to our robot and programming it to accomplish missions on the game board. Not all team members will get to code and run the robot but all members will have the opportunity to strategize the robot game.
Our state submission for the Replay Season. COVID prevented us from in person competitions so we had to film our robot run according to specifications and submit it. View it here.
Robot Design.
The robot design presentation at competition is where the team explains what we do in the robot game, everything from why we chose the motors we use to lines of code.
