Checklist FLL

This FLL Tournament Checklist is a tribute to our coaches who managed to not forget anything. We just took their checklist and added a bit to it.

Week before Coaches:

• Collect all T-Shirts and lanyards at one coach’s house
• Collect the Core Values poster, the Project Poster at one coach’s house
• E-mail to parents and print out tournament info including driving directions
• Fill in 4 sets of Team Information Sheets for the registration and for each panel of judges
• Print-out  3 sets of the research presentation for the Project judges.
• Print-out  2 sets of the programs  for the Robot Design judges.
• Copy the robot program files onto a flash drive.
• Pack Team Information Sheets
• Pack Team Registration Forms
• Pack Research Project and Posters
• Pack Research Project Printouts
• Pack boxes of spare Lego parts
• Pack extra batteries, extra cables, extra sensors
• Pack laptop charger, mouse,  USB cable
• Bring things (not laptop nor robot) to car that can withstand cold and condensation

Tournament morning Coaches:

• Laptop, Robot, batteries, camera to the car
• Bring breakfast and eat in car

Week Before Team members:

• practice the Research Presentation,  recall the details of mission chosen for the Robot Design.
• Think of possible questions for all the missions in which you participated
• practice the missions and time them
• make a checklist for the missions (see below our example). The 2:30 minutes pass extremely fast and they need to be organized.
• Practice Research Presentation for the parents and invite them to ask questions
• Robot tuning: Change tires
• Robot tuning: Fully charged  batteries

Parent day before/morning:

• Fill up car with gas the night before
• Be camera ready: charged batteries, new memory cards, charged cell phone
• Bring breakfast and eat in car

Arriving at Tournament:

• Set up research project in your pit area
• Put out the team’s banner
• Assembly carefully the robot and put it in a safe place
• Register in the phone all the matches/ judging rooms/ alliance
• If you have time, practice once
• Check out your alliance team as soon as possible, and discuss what missions did each of you
• Before the alliance practice at least two times with the other team. You can have two robots on the table in the same time, so do not wait for them to finish in order to start a mission.

Getting Ready for Match

• Fully charged batteries
• Inspect robot for anything out of the ordinary
• Inspect robot for things that often get loose ( wheels, sensors cables)
• Set up robot
• Position attachments
• Make sure all other attachments are in the tray
• Make sure your first program is selected and ready to run

At the Match Table

• Calibrate Light Sensor
• Look to see that the mat is positioned correctly. Ask refs to fix if not.
• Look to see that all field objects are positioned correctly, but do not touch them, just point them out to the referees
• Relax and go through the checklist of tasks done during practice.
• If during the missions the robot veers wrongly take it out without touching field pieces.
  • Keep calm and try to diagnose the problem. Your team loves you and supports you. Remember, that you all worked together to make the robot reliable as possible. A failed mission it is not the end of the world, it is a teaching moment.
  • Check the sensors.
    • If you interrupt the robot during a turn, chances are your Gyro Sensor needs resetting
    • Check Gyro Sensor for spinning out of control ( if you need to reset it, wait 4 seconds to plug it back)
  • Check the wheels.
  • The referee may take pieces from you so may need to skip missions.
  • You might receive a “rounded piece” penalty.

Our Detailed Checklist for the Animal Allies Missions:

• Tasks for Mission 1
  • Misson 1 Leader:
    • Check Gyro Sensor ( if you need to reset it, wait 4 seconds to plug it back)
    • Check Color Sensors (we had one that died during our round. The robot was veering and one child find the reason : Color Sensor’s state was “Terminal”)
    • Align robot with the start jig:
      • Mission 1 double check:  5 cases from the side wall
    • Ready to start at “LEGO”
  • Mission 1 Team member:
    • Put in the box useless things from the base: manure, guy with dog, pig’s wheels, biomimicry stuff (Animal Allies)
    • Take the starter jig out
    • Check that the corner of the starter jig is on the corner of the table
• Tasks for Mission 2
  • Mission 2 Team member:  
    • put wheels on the pig and check his ears,
    • Take the starter jig out
    • Check that the corner of the starter jig is on the corner of the table
  • Mission 2 Leader:  
    • take off the arm used to push the shark, throw it in the big box,
    • put the bee on both hooks,
    • put the pig carefully manipulating his ears,
    • align the starter jig,
    • align the robot carefully on the side of the starter jig without getting the robot out of the base
• Between Mission 2 and 3:
  • Leader: Put the starter jig in the box,
  • Team member: bring up in the corner the guy with the dog, hold onto the new attachment
• Tasks for Mission 3:
  • Mission 3 Leader: Align the robot on the middle of FIRST, second line after blank, you have 4 squares in front of you, inside the corner of the square, the robot is parallel to the lines
  • Mission 3 Team member: Check the alignment