Update,
1712 ran two Jr. FLL Expos again this fall, one of which was once again entirely run by 1712 students for the Lower Merion Elementary Schools and surrounding area (the second is at the opposite end of the county where I happen to live). Current team captain Delia Votsch was this year's coordinator for the LM Expo and did a marvelous job communicating with parents and teams, organizing volunteers, etc.
We're so pleased to know what started out as Jess's senior project has become a recurring community event. Delia has already helped select next year's coordinator and we'll also upload some updates to Jess' how to guide and support files.
We've found that these Expos are best executed with a lot of hands on and learning activities for the 6-9 year olds while the Expo is going on. Thus we've rolled a lot of our "Portable Inspiration" workshop package into these events. In 2009 the "stations" that the students visited included simple machines, teamwork, playing Pyramid Mania (a VEX robotics game), going through event reviewing, participating in team peer reviewing, meeting Dawgma, building a tall LEGO tower, and more.
Here's a press release from our district website:
http://www.lmsd.org/sections/veritas...2_itemId=22532
Here's last year's press release:
http://www.lmsd.org/sections/veritas...2_itemId=10847
Jr. FLL photo galleries from both years' events are linked here:
http://dawgma.lmtechclub.org/media/photos/
These events are affordable, easy to plan and run (compared to other FIRST events) and are fabulous starters in FIRST that target the inspiration of our youngest minds. If your team isn't involved, you REALLY should think about it or something like it for the youngest of our students.