Nazareth Elementary Dream Builders FLL Team

In July of 2023 the IgKnighters helped Nazareth Elementary school secure startup funding for a new FLL team. The team was formed in early September 2023 by Sister Margaret Mancuso, Mrs. Mary Carol Taylor, and Sister Connie Bickford. 

Mrs. Taylor recruited ten fifth graders that she knew from her fourth grade the previous year. The team met twice every week for the semester. We helped get them the FLL Masterpiece game set, a collection of EV3 robots and Lego parts, and a full-size wooden practice board. The team built the Masterpiece models on their own. 

Once a week, Mr. Aaron Schnittman went to support the Dream Builders with two IgKnighters, Liam and Andrew. During their meetings, we helped with technical troubles, strategy, coding, mechanics of robot movement, and the Innovation Project. The majority of support we gave was for the robot game. The Dream Builders operated very independently for the innovation project, and developed quite a mature and well-considered project. 

FLL competitions are frequently compared to a combination between a circus and a science fair. There is a lot of loud music, a lot of weird dancing. The judges are going to be wearing crazy hats to disarm the kids. Every team comes in with fun t-shirts and a healthy dose of silliness.

The competition itself is broken down into four parts, and they’re all equally weighted. One part is the robot game, which the kids get the most excited about. One part is an innovation project where they need to follow a fairly vague prompt from FIRST. They need to do some research and come up with an innovative solution from that research. And then they present their idea in front of a panel of judges. There’s also a component called “Core Values”, which places an emphasis on sportsmanship: How do you work within your team? How do you work externally to demonstrate the values of FIRST in general? How do you solve problems within your team? And then the fourth part is robot design. So, how did you design your robot? How did you code it and how did you strategize the game? 

At the end of their first FLL season, the Dream Builders competed at the McQuaid Regional Qualifier, and were awarded the Core Values Trophy. Needless to say, the Nazareth students were thrilled and proud to have progressed from no FLL experience to one of the few trophy-winners only three months later!

LINK TO NAZARETH ELEMENTARY BLOG ABOUT THE DREAM BUILDERS