For our first year, our budget looked like this:

$32.17    Shirts & Iron-Ons
$38.90    Markers, paper, folders
$70.81    LEGO Crazy Action Contraptions
$49.00    Activity Pack (new version)
$102.60    JrFLL Base Kit (roughly this)
$25.00    Team Registration

The Activity Pack is now $89 and there’s a second one for $49.  Highly recommended, and if you want to look at my copy of last year’s, you’re welcome to.

Our 2009-2010 budget is:

$25.00    Team Registration
$111.96    WeDo kit (either the JrFLL recommended one or the Homeschool WeDo set, which I think ends up cheaper)
$129.95    WeDo Activity Pack
$49.95    Advancing with Simple & Motorized Mechanisms (Note: the activities are kinda lame.  It also really wants to go with the W779686 set, which is new this year and has the build instructions needed for the “Advancing…” pack.  So, not a good fit for the JrFLL set from LAST year at all.  The CD does come with the build instructions, but I’ll have to print them out.)
$14.99    15″x15″ Base Plate
$19.13    Shipping
$50.00    Tackle Boxes for storage (Plano 1364, 1374?. Smaller soft-sided tackle box was annoying & not big enough.)
$25.00    LEGO Crazy Action Contraptions
$35.00    Team Shirts

So the main things we’re adding are WeDo and the Activity Pack for it.  Our kids are 8 and 9 now, so I think that’s going to be a really good fit.  For a younger team, the JrFLL Base Kit and the Activity Pack might be an easier start.

Who’s coaching again this year?

Any new teams around?

I’m hoping we can get another JrFLL event/competition to happen in the spring.

I see on this page http://www.kcfirst.org/FLL-Ages_9-14.html that there are a few FLL Rumbles and meets:

• December 5, 2009 FLL Rumble
  Summit Lakes Middle School
  1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
• January ?, 2010 FLL Rumble
  TBD
• February 27, 2010 FLL Tournament – Kansas and Western Missouri
  Summit Lakes Middle School
  8:00 am to 4:30 pm
• March 5&6, 2010 FLL Exhibition at FRC
  Hale Arena
  9:00 am to Noon
• March 20, 2010 Team Share
  TBD

I’ll try to get my team to a couple of these, and make sure they know about the events in case they want to attend on their own.

I haven’t seen it yet, but the show “Gearing Up” looks pretty cool:
http://www.gearingupproject.org/
Kansas City KCPTDT2 11/4/2009 2:00 PM CT
Kansas City KCPTDT2 11/4/2009 8:00 PM CT
Kansas City KCPTDT2 11/4/2009 9:00 AM CT
Kansas City KCPTDT2 11/5/2009 2:00 AM CT

The Cow Town Throw Down practice competition is this weekend: http://cttd-robotics.com/

I see the following teams so far:

• Trailwood Turbines (Overland Park)
• Rogue Squadron (Overland Park)
• Cyclones (my team, Valley Park Elementary, Overland Park)
• St. Agnes Jr. Rams (St. Agnes, Roeland Park)
• Mindstorm Masters Secret Agents (Kansas City)
• Astromechs (Parkville)

Last year was my first, and it wasn’t that hard to run.  I’m sure other homeschool folks would be interested, and I think there was a homeschool team at last year’s Kansas City JrFLL competition.  Not sure who the coach was, though.

Our practices were 1.5 hours at my home on Saturdays over the winter, and we mostly did the experiments from the LEGO Education kit (note that the kit and the teacher’s guide may be separate).  These were fun and interesting, and let the kids find their own roles in the group over time.  The Klutz LEGO book & pieces is excellent as well, and I’d suggest getting one per team member.

Links:

http://www.legoeducation.com/store/detail.aspx?CategoryID=186&by=9&ID=1667&c=1&t=0&l=0
(I’d buy one.  There are building activities for 2 students, but 6 can be kept busy prepping and performing the experiments.)

http://www.legoeducation.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=1672
(I’d buy one.  Otherwise, the kit above is very hard to figure out.)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591743419?ie=UTF8&tag=netmud
(I’d buy one for each team member.  This kit is crazy fun.  Seriously.  I’m tempted to abandon this post and go build something from it right now.)

[30 minutes elapse, while Glenn builds something from the Klutz book]

I think there are some new kits this year, including the WeDo sets, that might be encouraged by JrFLL.  Looks like this might be the best one, but I haven’t looked at it much yet:

http://www.legoeducation.com/store/detail.aspx?KeyWords=wedo&by=20&ID=1736&c=0&t=0&l=0

I charged the parents $40 each for the season, and should have made it $100 to cover all the expenses, but it was well worth the time and money.  I think we’ll have all 6 kids back this coming year, and a second team at our elementary is starting up for the same grade our son is in.

Last year’s topic was climate, so we also talked a lot about climate issues, and the kids got interested in tornadoes and did their project on that.  Worked out really well.  I focused on making the kids do all of the work, and they really rose to that.

In terms of forming a team, just decide to, recruit kids you want on your team, and register with JrFLL when it’s open (in 5 weeks, I expect).  I decided to have 3 boys and 3 girls, which made for an interesting mix, usually in good ways.

Coaching-wise, I’d suggest finding a second (non-spouse) coach to help fill the gaps, and then just plan out your practices one at a time.  Don’t worry about the challenge at first, just focus on kids having fun with LEGO and covering a bit about the topic.  Then work in more and more of it over time and nudge the kids toward doing things that they’ll need for the competition.

Our team of 6 ended up with 4 distinct models in the competition, each of which played a part of our story about tornado safety.  The models all connected story-wise but not “brick-wise”.  And that was fine.  Other teams had one giant model that was their entry.  And that was fine.

In my view, the main thing is to act as a shepherd guiding the kids toward working together on learning and building.  That makes for a fun time for them, and a productive time for the team.

Good luck, and as you can see, other coaches are happy to help you out as you get started!