Junior Robotics

FIRST LEGO League

Purdue FIRST Programs currently works with fourteen teams in it's LEGO League program all across the Greater Lafayette area. This includes teams from area elementary and middle schools, as well as the Lafayette YWCA.

The FIRST LEGO League (FLL), considered the "little league" of the FIRST Robotics Competition, is the result of a partnership between FIRST and the LEGO Company. FLL extends the FIRST concept of inspiring and celebrating science and technology to children aged 9 through 14, using real-world context and hands-on experimentation.

With the help of LEGO® MINDSTORMS™ NXT™ technology, young participants can build a robot and compete in a friendly, FIRST-style robotics event specially designed for their age group. Using LEGO bricks and other elements such as sensors, motors, and gears, teams gain hands-on experience in engineering and computer programming principles as they construct and program their unique robot inventions.

Besides the obvious fun and payback of learning to program a robot; playing with LEGO elements, motors, and gears; and traveling and competing as a team, FIRST encourages FLL team members to take part in the Research Assignment. The assignment relates to the Challenge for the year, and enhances the overall FLL experience. During this phase, students will collectively develop their creativity, enhance their research and collaborative abilities, refine their public speaking skills, and become more comfortable with these talents.

VEX

Purdue FIRST Programs has been putting together VEX challenges for the past 3 years for area high school teams. Eight teams competed in the Fall 2007 event.

The VEX program is primarily for high school students and focuses on problem solving and the development of engineering and design skills. It is a good precursor to joining the much more technical FRC teams.

VEX robotics kits from Innovation First, Inc. are a smaller, more accessible version of the large robots used in FRC. Students build the robots using the kit's various gears, sensors, wheels, metal structural elements, motors, and servos. They then control the robots in competition through the robot's microcontroller "brain" and an included remote control. They can also be programmed for autonomous action with an added upgrade kit.

If you have any questions about the Junior Robotics programs, please contact our Director of Junior Robotics