Jr. FLL
SMART Move Jr. FLL Expo a Success
Our 3rd Annual Jr. FIRST LEGO League Exposition in Stamford on February 7th was a smash hit! 30 teams representing 6 public schools, 1 private
school, 3 community organizations, 1 homeschool team (from Framingham MASS), and 1 New Jersey/Connecitcut partnership team participated making this by far our largest
event ever. Approximately 180 students participated, sharing their interest in science and technology (and LEGO) with our dedicated reviewers and
interested audience. At the end of the day all teams were recognized with LEGO trophies and individual medals for their unique achievements!
A wider reach
Our program inspired 36 teams to take the Jr. FIRST LEGO League "Smart Move" challenge this year (with 8 teams to participate in an upcoming "mini" expo at Northeast Elementary). That's well over 200 kids participating in this program in our community alone.
Sponsors and Partners
A huge thank you to our sponsors and partners in this effort.
Our event was co-sponsored by the Stamford Public Education Foundation and the Parent Teacher Council of Stamford. Pitney Bowes Inc. sponsored the event as well as provided tremendous support in the form of volunteers who mentored and coached several community and school teams. Kiwanis Club of Stamford also played a key role in sponsoring several school teams & providing volunteers to coach some teams. Without awesome sponsors like these our event would not be possible.
Special Note: On March 1st Mr. Murray Martin, President and CEO of Pitney Bowes as well as a serving board member of the Pitney Bowes Foundation, is being honored for his commitment to excellence in education by the Stamford Public Education Foundation at the Palace. Click here for more information and to join us at this event.
VIP Presenters and Guests
We were thrilled to once again host a number of special guest speakers and award presenters.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and State Senator Andrew McDonald helped open our event with their words of encouragement and wisdom to the kids. We appreciate the time taken from their busy schedules to attend.
Stamford Citizen of the Year Juanita James also honored us by acting as our official award presenter. She encouraged all the kids to work hard in their pursuit of education and in life. We were thrilled to have such a wonderful community leader and inspirational speaker to present the awards to all teams and team members.
We were also very happy to have Mayor Michael Pavia in attendance. Mayor Pavia took the time to speak to many teams about their projects and recognize their work.
Breakfast with the Attorney General and State Senator
One aspect of our Expo is the many high school students who volunteer as junior mentors, team reviewers, and event volunteers. One exciting element of this year's Expo was that Attorney General Blumenthal and State Senator McDonald came early to our event to host a breakfast with the high school student volunteers. These students had a unique opportunity to speak to their elected representatives in a small group setting where they were able to ask their questions and offer their opinions. We thank the Attorney General and State Senator for this unique contribution to our event.
Smart Move Around the Globe Student Activity
Inspired by the transportation theme, this year's activity was conceived and organized by the youth founders of Stamford Robotics. All participants were given a passport and tickets to travel around the globe. On their journey they enjoyed varied activities as they visited each continent. For example in Asia, the kids practiced Yoga, while in Europe they solved a crossword puzzle. In Latina America they learned about football (American soccer), while in North America they voted for their favorite Super Bowl team. In Antarctica, they danced the penguin dance, and in Australia they sang the Kukaburra song. Finally in Africa they completed the "I spy" safari.
During their journey, the kids connected with the Kick for Nick program. All travelers helped decorate soccer balls that will be transported to children in Iraq or Afghanistan in honor of Private First Class Nick Madaras - a soldier who "...believed in what he was doing, and truly wanted to help the people of Iraq...". For more information visit kickfornick.org.
Youth Volunteers Special Recognition
A number of our youth volunteers deserve special mention. These volunteers have served as either junior mentors, event reviewers, or program organizers (or in some cases in multiple capacities) for all three years of our program. We wanted them to know that their awesome dedication has not gone unnoticed.
- Dawn Winsor
- Felicia Tam
- Jonathan Keuhn
- Jyotsna Winsor
- Kelsey Bittel
- Kristofor Bittel
- Kurt Bittel
- Mallika Winsor
- Mike Melendez
- Nick Kuehn
- Rachel Winsor
Many other youth volunteers have helped make this program a success. We offer our thanks to them all.
FIRST Programs
Jr. FIRST LEGO League is a program of the FIRST organization (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). The FIRST mission is "To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes." They do that by sponsoring 4 competetive programs which engage students from age 6 all the way up through high school. Find our more about the FIRST mission, programs, and achievements at usfirst.org.
Jr. FIRST LEGO League is a yearly challenge appropriate for kids age 6 to 9. Each year in September FIRST announces the Jr. FLL challenge. The science topic changes every year with this year's "Smart Move" challenge related to transportation science and technology. Kids are challenged to form teams of up to 6, learn about the challenge topic, and build cool LEGO models to reflect their learning about the science topic as well as basic mechanical/engineering principles of "simple machines". The challenge concludes with team's attending a Jr. FLL Expo where they present their models and findings to reviewers, participate in fun topic related activities, and are rewarded for their achievements with a LEGO trophy.
Jr. FIRST LEGO League prepares kids for it's "big brother" FIRST LEGO League program where kids build and program real robots using LEGO NXT kits while coming up with real science and engineering solutions related to the yearly topic.
Other FIRST programs in Stamford
Two High School FIRST Robotics Challenge teams are also in Stamford, team 3104 from the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering (our Expo host!), as well as team 2862 from Westhill High School. Team 3104 from AITE provided youth volunteers to manage all our A/V requirements for the event. We appreciate their support and look forward to the future where we can work with them to promote and support FIRST programs in Stamford.
What about FIRST LEGO League for ages 9 to 14? It's been over two year's since Stamford fielded an FLL team at the Connecticut FLL regional and championship events. It's time for that to change. Interested? CLICK HERE to get on our mailing list NOW. We'll be updating you on this program and taking meaningful action to get this started throughout the spring, but it can't happen without YOUR interest and support.
We've Got Pictures!
See ALL pictures from this event
Picture Credits: All Pictures in this story courtesy of Lou Finkel.
Co-founder of Stamford Robotics Honored with "Women of Innovation" Award
We are very pleased to announce that Seema Winsor, co-founder of Stamford Robotics, was honored last week with the 2010 Women of Innovation award by the Connecticut Technology Council in the category of "Community Innovation and Leadership".
Read the Story: Business People: Pitney Bowes engineer honored
Youth Service Letter
Youth volunteers! Want to get a letter recording your service?
Click here to tell us what you did!
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Stamford Robotics to Present at Stone Soup!
We'll be there - will you?
The Stamford Robotics team will be at Stone Soup for the 21st Century. We'll be in the fairway all day demonstrating JFLL and FLL for our community families. Spreading the good word about the positive impact of these programs, and making sure families know the different ways they can make sure these programs are available for their kids.
Want to join us? Contact us before Saturday and let us know that you'd like to come join us.
Stone Soup will be this coming Saturday at AITE from 9 am to 3:30 PM. For all the details on this event go to www.stamfordasks.org.
We'll see you there! Don't forget to bring a canned food item for the food bank!
2009 Expo Concluded
<Check out the photos from this year's event>
Our second annual Junior FIRST LEGO League Expo in Stamford was successfully completed on February 8th, 2009! Thank you to all the teams that took the challenge, all the youth (high school, middle school and even elementary) who stepped up to be mentors, as well as all the coaches, volunteers etc. who made this event happen. Also a big thank you to our partners, Stamford Public Education Foundation and the Parent Teacher Council of Stamford. And finally, thanks to our corporate sponsors who contributed funding and in one case employee mentors to teams!
Our event was held at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering which provided an outstanding (and appropriate!) venue for this youth science/engineering event.
29 Teams took the JFLL "Climate Connections" challenge this year (22 attended the city-wide Expo, another 6 will be having a mini Expo at their school). These teams represented 6 elementary schools as well as 2 community organizations and one community team. We even had 1 team from New Jersey! Our community organizations especially stepped up this year. Last year only one community organization participated - Boys and Girls Club of Stamford. Well, they were back and better than ever, but with 4 teams from YMCA our community organization representation was really strong. We hope for even more next year!
As organizers of the event, Stamford Robotics volunteers were eager to see what these teams of JFLL students would come up with and we weren't disappointed! Their cool LEGO designs and impressive knowledge of climate were inspiring to the reviewers and all in attendance. From space satellite systems to weather flags these team's varied ideas about cool climate tools was inspirational.
JFLL Expo - Feb 3, 2008
Fri, 2008-02-08 11:42 — CoachDJFLL Expo - A Community Success Story!
The first ever JFLL Expo in Stamford Connecticut was held on February 3rd, 2008 and it was a great success! 20 teams attended this Junior FIRST LEGO League event ready to show what they had learned by taking the "Power Puzzle" challenge. They showed off their LEGO models and "Show Me" posters to the judges. They met with other teams to see what they had done and share their excitement about energy, science, technology, and, yes, LEGO. They participated in cool activities and got to meet and hear from community leaders. They came to celebrate the FIRST values of teamwork and gracious professionalism. And they came to be recognized for their achievements with cool LEGO trophies. Perhaps most of all, they came to HAVE FUN!
