Team+Work-Ryan

My name is Ryan Bigej and I have participated in FLL for four years. I am going to tell you about the last area of judging in a competition, teamwork. While participating in FLL we have learned that teamwork is key for success. The teamwork part of the competition is as important as all the other categories. At competition, the teams are taken to a separate room where they are given an open ended challenge that is unknown to all beforehand. For example, at the State tournament in teamwork judging we were asked to build a structure out of wooden blocks. They gave us three minutes total, one to talk and plan, and then two to build. While we were doing this, the judges watched for good teamwork and problem solving between the members of our team. They watched to see that everyone contributed and that we listened to each other and worked together. After the task was completed they also asked us questions about how problems and disagreements were solved during the season.

Team work is not just important while in the competition room, it is important to have teamwork at all times so you can solve problems that may come up. One of the problems that came up during our journey this season was what shape to build our robot. Some people thought that we should make it long while others thought that it should be short. We solved this by splitting in to two groups, each built a prototype to their own specifications and then presented to each other. We decided to use some special features from each of the prototypes to create a robot that we all thought was the best of both designs.