Advancing to the Northern California FLL Championship
Teams advance from their qualifying tournament based on being Well Rounded FIRST LEGO League teams.
Teams that advance will be solid performers in all four aspects of FIRST LEGO League:
- Robot Design
- Robot Performance
- Project Presentation
- Teamwork
These are the same four areas that make up the Champion's Award.
At the qualifiers, the judges will rank each team according to its placement in each of the above 4 categories. The sum of the ordinal ranks will be used to provide an effective overall rank for the teams.
The judges will then deliberate over this ranked list of team to break any ties and produce a list of teams that will advance from the Qualifying Tournament.
Note that it is likely that there will be teams that win awards that do not end up advancing, just as it is possible that a team will advance without winning an award.
Consider the hypothetical 12-team tournament results presented in the table below. If the tournament is only allowed to advance 3 teams, it is possible (depending on the judges deliberation) that team D would not advance, despite having won the Robot Performance Award. It is also possible that team C would advance without having placed better than 2nd for any award.
Team |
Design |
Performance |
Project |
Teamwork |
Overall |
A |
3 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
9 |
B |
1 |
4 |
2 |
4 |
11 |
C |
2 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
12 |
D |
4 |
1 |
5 |
2 |
12 |
E |
5 |
5 |
6 |
1 |
17 |
F |
6 |
6 |
7 |
6 |
25 |
G |
7 |
7 |
4 |
7 |
25 |
H |
8 |
8 |
8 |
8 |
32 |
I |
9 |
9 |
9 |
9 |
36 |
J |
10 |
10 |
10 |
10 |
40 |
K |
11 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
44 |
L |
12 |
12 |
12 |
12 |
48 |
Skipping, either directly or indirectly, any of the four aspects of the FLL program would make it difficult for any team to advance, since they would end up being ranked poorly.
FLL Core Values are a part of all judged awards. Teams observed by the judges and tournament observers to be showing poor FLL Core Values may find that they are effectively excluded from awards (and advancement) due to their actions.
This includes situations where the judges determine that the coaches/mentors have had too active a role in the team's activities; essentially seeing that the work is not that of the kids.
Similarly, coaches & mentors failing to abide by the Coaches' Promise may similarly negatively impact their team.
Educational Enrichment Through
Play
© 2006, Playing@Learning, All Rights Reserved
Last Updated: 05/05/2009 7:01 PM