What is FLL
The Project
Every year FIRST releases a theme to provoke creative solutions for real-world problems. The project assesses a student's:
Quality of research
Feasibility of solution
Presentation of the solution
The Robot Game
Every year FIRST presents 10-15 challenges that students need to solve. Students must design, build, and program a robot to complete as many challenges as they can in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Students gain a certain number of points for each challenge they complete.
Judging
Besides the project, students are also judged on their Core Values and their Robot Design in 2 rounds of interviews. These rounds test the students' ability to work well with others and evaluates the team's engineering and design process
Tournaments
There are 3 tournaments in the FLL competition leading up to the national level. These are the Qualifying, Regional, and National.
Qualifying
End of Fall
The qualifying tournaments are held at local highschool or event center. 33% of teams move on to the regional competitions. Spots fill up fast so sign up for these early
Regional
Winter
Regional tournaments are held at large convention centers each year. Teams that won their qualification tournament compete in the regional competition. A regional can host upto 400 teams and 20 teams move to the next level
National
Spring
The International tournament is held at Houston or Detroit each year and hosts. The winner of the regionals face off for a National champion