Good Time To Start Teaching My Little Brother?

[Joe G.]

I did FLL for 6 years. I started at the age of 10. It was easily one of the best experiences of my life. One of the great things about FLL (there are many great things) is that the "get the best score you can" approach gives a thrill to people of ANY skill level. Sure, the top level teams achieve near perfection. But my first year, we were THRILLED when things went right for us, and we scored a big 35 out of 400 points. Participating in FLL, and the constant progress you make over the years, is a GREAT way to learn the basics (and not-so-basics) of engineering.

And if there aren't any teams nearby, start one! FLL teams are easy to make, with a much lower budgetary commitment than FRC. My team was home-grown, run by two committed families who owned mindstorms kits, and made it to the world championship.

[Tetraman]

Back in my day, in middle school, I played in a Lego Mindstorms competition similar to FLL. The entire club split into groups of 3 and so the 5 or so teams of us played against each other, plus the other 10 or so teams from the other area middle schools. It wasn't FLL but it played like it and pretty much WAS it.

After this (and my group getting second place) we were told that if we were interested in contining robotics, that the high school did some bigger robot league. Thus, I made it into FRC with team 174 and the rest is history.

While I can't say that I got into Robotics because of FLL, I can say it was an FLL-like game that pulled me into FRC.

I went into the Lego Mindstroms League because I loved building with Lego, and went into FRC because I loved working on a team, working on design and solving puzzles. Guess what? I'm an art kid. I studied art in high school and it wasn't until college were I completed a degree in Industrial Design that I came close to actually working on things close to what I did in Robotics. Everyone finds their own niche in the team and will be able to provide something of worth.

[HannahF]

I agree with a lot of the above posts that if your brother is interested you can probably start to teach him. You are never too young to start programing.

FLL is a fantastic program, I got involved two years ago as a mentor and I love the program. As Joe said FLL is very thrilling at all levels of competition so I am sure that even as a new member your brother would have fun.

Last year, I started an FLL team with my little brother (5th grade) and it has definitely been a great bonding experience for both of us. Don't be afraid of starting a team at your brother's school if they don't already have one. Mentoring FLL is very rewarding plus it is a fun way to spend the FRC "off season" while getting to spend qaulity time with your little brother.

He looked very interested and I told him that I would teach him programming. But since he didn't understand the things I was typing in, he got scared I guess.

In my experience a great intro to programing program is Alice http://www.alice.org/

Alice was created by Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture) and Carnegie Mellon University. It is a 3d based programming software that teaches students to think logically and write interactive code. Your brother may find it easier to grasp the concepts of programming through Alice and then to move on to C. (plus Alice software is completely free to the public)


~Hannah

[steelerborn]

My brother is 11 and I have already taught him Pro-Engineer, and he can CAD a whole robot by himself now. In fact he is actual going to skip his middle school years in FLL and shadow an FRC team for two years, so when he is Freshmen in High School he will have the experience of a Junior.