Oregon Robotics Tournament and Outreach Program

ORTOP Home Background Information Leaders & Teachers Partners & Sponsors Friends & Volunteers Coaches & Mentors FLL International Kits Workshops Fundraising & Scholarships Books Contact Us		Coaches & Mentors Each team must have one or more adults who take responsibility for organizing the team and teaching its members about robotics. Often one adult will serve the role of coach and another will be the team's technical mentor. There are many possible formulas for success, however. Some teams may have two coaches, a coach and two mentors; or a coach and assistant coaches. Coaches A coach can be a teacher club leader scout master parent Coaches should recruit team determine when teams meets instill spirit in team schedule meetings arrange for practice table or equivalent register team order kits, etc. understand the rules have fun co-coach or otherwise pair up keep a positive attitude emphasize demonstrating a solution at the tournament is success don't over emphasize winning not worry about the solution; that's up to the team Coaches encourage teamwork insist on mutual respect facilitate development of timeline deal with parents communicate about tournament philosophy, goals, rules solicit help communicate with school, etc. don't have to be technical expert; rely on mentor for that. To view a letter to prospective coaches, click here. Those who are interested in becoming coaches are encouraged to register for no-charge no-obligation workshops. If you have already attended a workshop and want to remind us of your interest in serving as a coach or assistant coach please contact us. Registration The team's coach is responsible for registering the team between May and September. Kits can be ordered at the same time as the team is registrated. See the FIRST LEGO League web site. Medallions All team members that participate in the state tournament receive a FIRST LEGO League bronze medallion. Awards In addition to demonstrating their robot on the official challenge field, each team will be interviewed by two panels of judges. Many different trophy categories will be awarded. Fundraising and Scholarships Fundraising and scholarship information is available.		Mentors Mentors should be a technical advisor let coach do his/her job understand both robot design programming encourage structured problem solving experiment with one variable at a time set achievable goals remember team members are kids limit terminology have fun When mentors meet with a team they should pick one or two new subjects per session Loops Sensors Gears Pulleys Tracks Wheels Mentors should meet with the coach regularly don’t solve problems for team focus on questions not answers Mentors should teach problem solving, including defining the problem brainstorming evaluating alternatives choosing alternative implementing evaluating & testing Those who are interested in becoming mentors are encouraged to register for no-charge no-obligation workshops. If you have already attended a workshop and want to remind us of your interest in serving as a mentor or assistant mentor please contact us. Resource Materials Don Domes and Ken Cone have developed a great workbook for coaches who want to teach their team how to use us Robolab to program their robot. To download these two large Acrobat files, right click on the links below: Coaching Workbook Robot Assembly Instructions Other Materials LEGO has a good web site for its Mindstorms product line. INSciTE, the organization that runs FIRST LEGO League in Minnesota. They have a have a great web site. They have created manual materials including a great table of gear ratios possible with LEGO gears. They have also created some great reference and teaching materials. (These are large files.) Material on creating and programming robots using the software that comes with the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System. This material includes a manual and a presentation. Material on creating and programming robots using Robolab software. This material includes a manual and presentation. Building LEGO Robots for FIRST LEGO League Tufts University, the inventor of Robolab, has useful curriculum material. Another great resource is an article by Fred G. Martin of MIT called The Art of LEGO (file is about 1 megabyte). Carnegie Mellon University has a great web site featuring LEGO robotics: Robotics Academy Online Course Resources For a summary of the recommendations of four successful coaches from the 2002 season see Best Practices 2002. For hints on printing programs from the Mindstorms RIS software see the end of the Frequently Asked Questions page Workshops We will be holding workshops for volunteers from May through Septemberr.. At these workshops you will learn more about FIRST LEGO League. You will have the opportunity to build and program a small robot. You will be introduced to how you can help ensure that a wide variety of children have the opportunity to build team skills and gain insight into how teamwork and creativity are used by engineers to solve practical problems. If you are interested in attending one of these workshops at no charge see Workshops. Brochure You can download a flyer in Acrobat format.