FIRST LEGO League Challenge Coaching Techniques

Unofficial Guide to FIRST LEGO League Challenge by FLL Lessons

ORTOP has developed a 3-part workshop series introducing coaches and prospective coaches to FIRST' LEGO League.

• Part 1

This part starts ORTOP's mission and the value of FIRST LEGO League Challenge. I then gives a brief introduction to the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 and SPIKE Prime robotics sets, the annual FIRST LEGO League Challenge field. It concludes with a conceptual overview of how a LEGO robot works and how it is connected to and programmed using a computer.

Slides for Part 1

• Part 2

This part covers the structure of a team, FIRST Core Values, what team members do and how they benefit, a discussion of the robot sets, the cost associated with participating as a team, some ideas on fundraising, walk throughs of the SPIKE Prime and Mindstorms EV3 kits, a preview of resources available on the ORTOP Wiki, the season timeline, FIRST's Youth Protection Program, the registration process, and ends with a summary of how tournaments work and what awards are typically given.

Slides for Part 2

• Part 3

This part starts with a review of available resources including kid-friendly videos and learning materials for coaches. It then gives an introduction to programming a robot using LEGO Education's version of Scratch including demonstrations creating programs and what those programs cause a robot to do.

Slides for Part 3

ORTOP has also developed a workshop covering coaching and mentoring techniques.

• Slides
• PDF of the above slides

See also Coaching During the Pandemic.