Elementary to Middle to High School Pathway

[JosephC]

One of the things you could do for the Middle School is start a FTC team. One of the things you could do is have each FRC team start a FTC team. Not only does this help with Chairman's but it also helps teach your FRC members more leadership skills. This is a step up from the Lego NXT, and still lets to you teach VEX in your high school classes without having student's feel like they've done it before. Not only that, but it introduces your middle schoolers to FIRST rather then them coming into it at the high school level.

We, team 68, are starting a FTC team at our middle school this upcoming year. If you need any details on how to start one I can put you in contact with my team leader.

[MattS_FRC867]

Have you considered participating in Project Lead the Way?
http://www.pltw.org/

Our school recently joined PLTW. We already implemented one of the classes, Principles of Engineering, and I think they are planning to add more classes next year, Introduction to Engineering design and Digital Electronics. We use these classes as introduction courses for students who are interested in joining our FIRST team, which serves as the Advanced Robotics class but will probably change into the Engineering Design and Development.

It's something to consider.

[lmedina]

So we have a district wide program that incorporates EARLY, FLL, BEST, VEX and FRC.

Our Elementary program starts with EARLY in 2nd and 3rd grade, we move the students to FLL in 4th and 5th.

The intermediate program is VEX based with our math magnet working with BEST.

At the high school level we have VEX, BEST and FRC.
We are also a PLTW district and all of our PLTW classes that use the VEX platform compete in an intra-district competition and robotics fair (new this year)

There is a ton more I can share with you if you like. Please feel free to email me at lmedina@ccisd.net

[Dan 1038]

In my experience, FLL is perfectly suitable for students up to 9th grade. FRC 1038 has started a number of FLL teams in our district - the number was 16 when I coached FLL back in 2008-9. Many of the kids on 1038 are FLL vets, resulting in less of a learning curve. I coached a BEST team last year after moving from OH to TN, and I gotta admit that I am not a big fan - I put FLL technology over BEST by far! The NXT platform is more relavent to FRC and allows more advanced programming and build then BEST - but it is not free, like BEST. If BEST openned up the rules more to take advantage of the VEX platform, I would be all for it! I started an FRC team at the same school I coached BEST last year, the kids were blown away at the difference...

[Pjohn1959]

Originally Posted by lmedina

So we have a district wide program that incorporates EARLY, FLL, BEST, VEX and FRC.

Our Elementary program starts with EARLY in 2nd and 3rd grade, we move the students to FLL in 4th and 5th.

The intermediate program is VEX based with our math magnet working with BEST.

At the high school level we have VEX, BEST and FRC.
We are also a PLTW district and all of our PLTW classes that use the VEX platform compete in an intra-district competition and robotics fair (new this year)

There is a ton more I can share with you if you like. Please feel free to email me at lmedina@ccisd.net

Easily the most integrated robotics program that I have ever seen. Students are exposed to, and can participate in some sort of a robotics activity during their entire school career. This includes EVERY campus in the whole school district, which includes 26 elementary, 10 middle and 8 high schools. It is no wonder why the Robonauts are such a solid team.

Congrats on a job well done!

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Pjohn1959

Easily the most integrated robotics program that I have ever seen. Students are exposed to, and can participate in some sort of a robotics activity during their entire school career. This includes EVERY campus in the whole school district, which includes 26 elementary, 10 middle and 8 high schools. It is no wonder why the Robonauts are such a solid team.

Congrats on a job well done!

Sanddrag,

Virginia's Prince William County school system (plus the independent city systems in the county, and some private schools in the county) has many years of experience with a similarly diverse (ages and programs) suite of opportunities.

They do well at keeping their focus on the students, and take advantage of the best each of many programs has to offer.

I'm sure Denyse Carroll and the rest of the team there (here) would enjoy a chance to share their success stories, lessons learned, and other wisdom they have acquired.

Send a message to the address in my signature to get me to make the connection (Alternatively, you might try finding her (or me) through LinkedIn)

Blake