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On September 7, the Decatur County Board of Education held a “teacher summit” with Grady County, Southern Regional Technical College (SRTC), and Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) to expand the First Lego League (FLL) program in southwest Georgia.

The First Lego League is an organization that uses Legos to introduce STEM to students from elementary to high school. The process starts with “students exploring by thinking about a topic of importance to scientists and business worldwide.  For example, this year the topic is Oceans. Students begin by learning about the topic and identify a problem related to that topic which they can help solve. Students come up with a possible solution or innovation project.  The topic is used throughout the EXPLORE and DISCOVERY levels of FIRST which focus on grades K-3 and then when students get to fourth through ninth grade, they can are able to compete in the FIRST LEGO LEAGUE.  This level of the robotics program encompasses more than robotics.  It is about innovation, engineering design, teamwork focused on the Core Values, and also robot performance. After 9^th grade, students can compete in the  FTC or FRC levels which are  a tech challenge using VEX robots or the robotics challenge which is a more complex robot.”

Amy Zock, Decatur County’s Instructional Technologist, and Danielle Jones from Grady County led the event for coaches on September 7^th while discussing key components for the FLL program.

One key component of the September Event was to highlight the Core Values of the FIRST LEGO LEAGUE program which consists of “coopertition” instead of competition. “We cooperate to compete to be better, so we can help one another. So, the stronger my opponent, the stronger I would be.” Also, the concept of “gracious professionalism” is an important core value in the FIRST program that promotes students interacting in a sharing and professional manner. “If you’re going to be ready for the world, you have to learn those skills.”

There are sometimes obstacles to beginning robotics teams and the event on Saturday aimed to find ways to eliminate obstacles for beginning the FIRST program in this area. Obstacles may include material cost, registration fees, or lack of experience with robotics or programming. “One of the things that may get in the way in our region is that we’re far from metro Atlanta where many of the competitions for FIRST LEGO LEAGUE take place,” Zock explained. “It can be difficult to get teams up there to compete. We are working with CEISMC and SRTC so we can provide more opportunities for our students to compete locally. This way the teams have more chances to interact with other kids who are interested in STEM.”

That’s where CEISMC from Georgia Tech and AIMS from SRTC were able to step in and provide support providing robot kits and registration for new coaches who participated on Saturday.  Zock is very enthusiastic about the program. “I think it’s exciting that we’re bringing the accessibility of the program to this region.  I know our kids are going to be amazing at this. They already understand the basic core values because they are growing up in a rural community. They understand the idea of gracious professionalism and coopertition. If one farmer’s crops are bad, it affects everybody’s right? So, we  want to grow everybody around us  so we  all get better.”

What’s next for these new FLL teams? On October 26, students will be able to practice against each other and learn ways to overcome obstacles or scenarios at the Decatur County Board of Education during the first LEGO FEST sponsored by SRTC and CEISMC.