First Lego League Challenge Resources
Below is a list of some resources that may be of value to FIRST LEGO League Challenge teams and coaches. Please take note that most of them are NOT official FIRST-approved resources. Many are links to training or videos created by FIRST Tech Challenge or FIRST Robotics Competition teams in their effort to provide outreach and support to the FIRST LEGO League program. Do not rely entirely on any source other than the documents and resources specifically published by FIRST LEGO League for authoritative game or judging advice or information. In addition to the resources listed below, be sure to check out our training page.
Official FIRST and LEGO Publications:
Official FIRST LEGO League season resources – This is where you will find the videos, official game rules, season updates (important to check!), mission model build instructions, new wireframe and grid files, scoresheet, the new rubrics, etc. You will also find the email addresses to send game, project, judging, and team questions.
Preparing for your MASTERPIECE Event- This will give you a great idea of what to expect at a tournament, with one exception. Do NOT expect to have any tech available in your judging rooms. If your team has a slide presentation or wants to show code on a computer, they will want to do it on a laptop or have some other tech the kids bring with them and set up during their allotted judging session time.
FIRST Judging Resources – A look into how judges evaluate teams
Thinkscape – This link will provide instructions to access an interactive Engineering Notebook, a Team Meeting Guide, Robot Game Rules, and many teaching resources available through Thinkscape. You can access it through your team dashboard. Many of these items are also available on the regular FLL Game and Season resource website.
FLL Team Blasts – Catch up on all the official news. Coaches should be receiving these emails.
FLL Blog – Find a wide variety of information here.
FIRST LEGO League Facebook Page
LEGO Education Classroom Curriculum
Programming/Building Resources:
Studio 2.0 from Bricklink (enables you to build a robot in a virtual environment)
Spike Prime (latest robot model)
Word Blocks Motor and Sensor Icon Guide
EV3 (previous robot model)
EV3 Mindstorms Classroom download (the new Scratch-based EV3 programming platform)
EV3 Mindstorms Lab download (Formerly called EV3-G, this is now listed as a retired product. This is what most of us have been using and is still legal to use)
Project Resources:
flltutorials.com Project section
Coaching a Team on the FIRST LEGO League Challenge Innovation Project
Remote Season Resources:
flltutorials.com Core Values activities Some are specifically designed for online use
Community Best Practices New short video series from FIRST LEGO League
Remote Mentoring with FIRST training
General Team Resources (many of these include programming and building):
flltutorials.com Excellent resources on all aspects of FIRST LEGO League including lessons, a scoring app, planning worksheets, and some great coach resources (see the “Worksheets” in their Resources tab)
FLL Challenge Share and Learn Facebook group
Quick Route – In case you have to condense your season into fewer sessions
AOF Robotics – to help teams accept donations and sponsorships
YouTube Channels:
Builderdude35 – years of building and programming tutorials
FRC Team Droids Robotics – tutorials, including current season
Mr. Hino’s LEGO Robotics – programming and coaching videos
Zachary Trautwein – EV3 and Spike Prime programming, Spike Prime
ACADIA ROBOTICS – EV3 and SPIKE Prime tutorials
Note on YouTube videos that are posted by FLL teams: It can be very helpful to see what other teams have done in past years or perhaps even in the current season. Your team can look at navigation strategies, multi-tasking, how other teams approach missions etc. While it can be fun and inspiring for teams to watch these videos, it can also be very discouraging if they don’t remember a few key points. 1. Teams outside North America can have kids who are up to 16 years old on FLL teams. 2. These are typically the best teams in the world posting videos, and these are NOT typical for our local tournaments. 3. Almost every video you will find was recorded during a practice run, when the robot was performing perfectly, not during an actual tournament. Please be sure that your teams learn from and enjoy the other teams’ videos, but don’t become discouraged because they think they should be able to perform like that.