FLL Educator Workshop

Last Saturday at the FIRST Lego League Educator Workshop at Joe Walker Middle School, PHI Robotics team members helped local educators build their own Lego robots and learn about how to get started with FLL.

After a morning of presentations by Eagle Robotics on how to run a FLL team, workshop attendees constructed their 'bots from Lego parts and NXT brains.  Then, they programmed their robots to complete a challenge similar to the one assigned to FLL teams each robotics year.  By the end of the day, these new Lego coaches and mentors had gained valuable firsthand experience to share with their teams about how to build a robot.

We had a lot of fun partnering with the NASA AERO Institute and Eagle Robotics on this workshop.  If you'd like our support with other workshops and events, email us at phirobotics@yahoo.com, and we'll see what we can do!

Workshop attendees learn about robotics.

A PHI team member ponders on how to build a Lego robot.

Local educators watch their robot in action.

Summer Outreach

As a creative summer outreach project, this month our team gave several hour-long robotics presentations for about 20 kids from K-6th grade at the Quartz Hill YMCA Childcare Center.

We taught the children about robots and played a game about basic programming.  With the older kids, we discussed FIRST Lego League, and explained how they could join a team, while the younger kids had fun drawing imaginary robots and looking at robot books.  The finale was a lively game of Simon Says, featuring the guest appearance of Goldie the robot (a human in a friendly robot costume.)

We enjoyed teaching the children about robotics and leading them in fun activities, and we hope to partner with the YMCA Childcare Center for more events like this in the future!  If you'd like us to give a similar event at your school or community center, you can email us at phirobotics@yahoo.com.

PHI team members show off our robot.

A team member picks volunteers for a fun activity.

Goldie joins a game of Simon Says.