In the summer of 2023, the Stormgears team hosted our second FLL Workshop with the Gummy Bears. With more than 20 students attending and a lot of energy, we had a successful and fun week of learning! In our workshop, we had students coming from all different levels; some had never touched a robot, whereas some had gone to states in FLL. Each day we covered a different topic, starting with an introduction to the FLL program, then programming from scratch, building attachments, navigation strategies, game strategy, and creating presentations.
For the introduction of FLL, we had them split into groups and complete a team challenge to encourage bonding. They followed a tutorial and created their robot. The next day, we taught the kids how to code from scratch and move their robots around. They learned some basic mechanisms, and we had them make different kinds of attachments. Next, we taught them navigation and game strategy so that they would be able to complete a mission. At the end of the workshop, students were put into groups to create a presentation covering the topics that they learned over the week. They were taught key presentational skills such as being creative, using visuals, and making eye contact.
After the week, we found out which students wanted to join an FLL team and found and created teams based on interest. Finally, we gave them a demonstration of our robot to help motivate and inspire them.