Harvey Mudd College FLL Qualifier Judging
Date: November 23, 2013
Time: 8:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.
# of Members: 2
Our club’s two FLL teams, 66 and 12474, competed in the Los Angeles FIRST Lego League region’s qualifier at Harvey Mudd College near the end of their competition season. Thus, two of our FTC team members, Proud Heng and Benjamin Domae, volunteered to help run the competition as judges. These two worked with college students and professional engineers to grade teams based on standard FLL rubrics to help decide which teams would earn what awards at the end of the Saturday. Proud was assigned as a Core Values judge, where she scored teams based on their spirit, teamwork, and Gracious Professionalism. Benjamin was given the role of Robot Design judge and graded teams’ robots based on their performance on the field, programming techniques, structural integrity, reliability, and creativity. Both of these members were ready for their jobs from their experience on an FLL team within the club; Proud was a research lead and Ben a robot design lead on FLL team 267 during the Food Factor season, when the club won the Champion’s award in the LA region and went on to compete in the North American Open Championship. Furthermore, Ben had experience as a FLL judge at a previous competition.
On the day of the competition, Proud and Ben arrived with the members of the two WHS FLL teams around 7:30 AM. As the club members arrived early for the competition, we helped the event coordinator, Ms. Liberty (also the LA regional affiliate partner for FTC), set up the venue for the qualifier event. Afterwards, the two teams went to the pits to set up their displays, practice their skits and presentations, and get ready for their robot events. Meanwhile, Proud and Ben went to the orientation for judging and received their packets for judging the teams. During the competition, both Ben and Proud were paired with other judges to grade teams with question and answer sessions. Throughout the day, both were very busy assigning scores to each team, each receiving around eight or nine to grade. Near the end of the competition, Proud and Ben worked with the other judges in their category to compare rubric scores and rank teams in their categories. They then discussed with the other judges candidates for the Champion’s Award, each category’s awards, and the list of teams advancing to the LA Regional Championship, all of which were presented at the end of the competition.
Overall, Proud and Ben enjoyed judging the teams as each team provided a different perspective on the challenges they faced and proposed new ideas for the judges to ponder. Furthermore, both were glad to help inspire younger children to pursue STEM fields and enjoy FLL.
Time: 8:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.
# of Members: 2
Our club’s two FLL teams, 66 and 12474, competed in the Los Angeles FIRST Lego League region’s qualifier at Harvey Mudd College near the end of their competition season. Thus, two of our FTC team members, Proud Heng and Benjamin Domae, volunteered to help run the competition as judges. These two worked with college students and professional engineers to grade teams based on standard FLL rubrics to help decide which teams would earn what awards at the end of the Saturday. Proud was assigned as a Core Values judge, where she scored teams based on their spirit, teamwork, and Gracious Professionalism. Benjamin was given the role of Robot Design judge and graded teams’ robots based on their performance on the field, programming techniques, structural integrity, reliability, and creativity. Both of these members were ready for their jobs from their experience on an FLL team within the club; Proud was a research lead and Ben a robot design lead on FLL team 267 during the Food Factor season, when the club won the Champion’s award in the LA region and went on to compete in the North American Open Championship. Furthermore, Ben had experience as a FLL judge at a previous competition.
On the day of the competition, Proud and Ben arrived with the members of the two WHS FLL teams around 7:30 AM. As the club members arrived early for the competition, we helped the event coordinator, Ms. Liberty (also the LA regional affiliate partner for FTC), set up the venue for the qualifier event. Afterwards, the two teams went to the pits to set up their displays, practice their skits and presentations, and get ready for their robot events. Meanwhile, Proud and Ben went to the orientation for judging and received their packets for judging the teams. During the competition, both Ben and Proud were paired with other judges to grade teams with question and answer sessions. Throughout the day, both were very busy assigning scores to each team, each receiving around eight or nine to grade. Near the end of the competition, Proud and Ben worked with the other judges in their category to compare rubric scores and rank teams in their categories. They then discussed with the other judges candidates for the Champion’s Award, each category’s awards, and the list of teams advancing to the LA Regional Championship, all of which were presented at the end of the competition.
Overall, Proud and Ben enjoyed judging the teams as each team provided a different perspective on the challenges they faced and proposed new ideas for the judges to ponder. Furthermore, both were glad to help inspire younger children to pursue STEM fields and enjoy FLL.