FIRST Lego League Teams are judged in the following areas:

FLL is a competition for teams of up to 10 students ages 9-14 years old.  The competition consists of table matches (where their robot runs) and judging on the design and construction of the robot and software as well as how effective they operate as a team.  In addition, they are required to conduct research on a topic related to the theme designated for the year and are judged on a presentation of their research.  They receive a new "challenge" each year consisting of a set of missions to be accomplished on a 4' x 8' table with a mat a field set up to simulate some scenario.  The robot match is 2 1/2 minutes long.  Each team runs their robot three times.  

Robots are constructed from LEGO Robotics kits and are programmed using either the LEGO Mindstorms software or Robolab software which is based on Labview.  Both software programs are graphic and have fairly simple constructs.  The teams bring their robot and either a printout of their programs or a laptop for viewing the programs to the judging area.  Hardware judges have the teams demonstrate how their robot accomplishes the mission objectives and talk with the team members about how their robot is designed, why they made specific design decisions, etc.  Software judges have the teams walk through their software and have them talk about the design and how effective their software is.  

For the Research Presentation judging, the teams have 1 minute to setup any props they have, 5 minutes to present followed by questions from the judges on the research project.  For Teamwork judging, this year we are providing materials and asking the teams to accomplish a task (similar to a creative problem solving exercise) so the judges can observe how effective the team in in a real time setting.  The judges will also have a Q&A period to ask questions about how the team operates.

Judges are provided with a set of rubrics (a qualities matrix defining fair, good, etc in a variety of areas) and a set of sample questions to ask students.  We can set up training sessions in early February for judges on request.

Registration for Regional and State Judges have started!

Please visit http://www.swe-sc.org/FLL