Starting a FIRST LEGO League Challenge Team

Learn about this year’s challenge

Every year, FIRST LEGO League releases a new challenge based on a real-world, scientific theme. Refer to the Season Challenge for additional details.

Each competition has four equally weighted elements: Innovation Project, Robot Design, Robot Performance, and Core Values. The first two elements are evaluated during a judging session. Robot performance is evaluated during the robot game. Core Values are evaluated during all parts of the competition.

Innovation Project

Teams learn more about the science behind the real-world theme, then use their creativity to design a solution, or modify an existing solution, to solve a related problem.

Teams must prepare a live, engaging presentation to explain the work they have done on their innovation project.

Robot Design

Teams must build and program an autonomous (no remote control) LEGO robot that can perform theme-based mission tasks on a table-top playing field. Teams need to think about how their robot will accomplish the mission tasks, from the tools (hardware) and behaviour (software) perspective.

Teams must prepare and deliver a short explanation on their robot design, programs, and strategy.

Robot Game

Designing a robot is more than just connecting LEGO, the missions require the robot to navigate, capture, transport, or deliver objects. The more missions completed, the more points teams earn. Teams have 2.5 minutes to complete as many mission tasks as they can.

Core Values

While teams work on the Innovation Project and Robot Game, they are guided by the FIRST Core Values. Teams are encouraged to compete but always respect their teammates, Coaches, and even help their competitors.

Learn About Safety

At FIRST, student safety is always paramount. Every adult must become familiar with our Youth Protection Program. Watch our videos and read our youth protection materials.

Form Your Team

Recruit up to 2 to 10 interested team members ages 9 to 14 (approximately grades 4 to 9) and at least 2 adult coaches. Students can only be on one team, but a coach is allowed to coach multiple teams.

Some teams may have more than 10 children wanting to join. If the coach cannot form a second team, they must make the difficult decision to select only 10 members. We recognize this is not an easy choice.

Register

Once you have a team, even if you do not have all your team members yet, follow our Registration Guide to register for the FLLNL regional competition.

Obtain Materials

Every team needs the following materials:

  • LEGO Education Robot Set
    • SPIKE Prime Set (Core + Expansion)
    • MINDSTORMS
  • Electronic Devices (laptop, tablet, or computer) with appropriate software (LEGO Education SPIKE or other compatible software) installed.
  • Challenge Set that contains the mission models, challenge mat, and some miscellaneous pieces. The team should build the models very carefully using the building instructions.
  • Challenge Table that has four walls and the Challenge mat set up with all the mission models. If you cannot build the table, it is also possible to use the mat on the floor.

Contact first@levitatelearning.ca for assistance in obtaining materials.