I work with FRC Team 6413 from Chandler AZ, supported by the Si Se Puede Foundation. Recently we were contacted via social media by MakersPlace: a group in Ghana that aims to increase access to competitive robotics competitions in their country. After meeting with them via Zoom, we learned that both our organizations share similar missions in trying to provide high-quality STEM opportunities in our communities. Their organization has most of the resources that they need to support an FLL program (physical space, mentors, students, computers, etc.). Their biggest need right now is the EV3 kits themselves. We’re looking for other teams who might be interested in helping us gather FLL kits and/or remotely mentor these teams to help support MakersPlace.
For those interested in helping donate and/or remotely mentor these teams. They are looking for 15-20 EV3 kits, used or unused, to support all of the students that they work with by the start of the new season in August. We really appreciate any donations or help. If your team is willing to donate any EV3 kits or is interested in helping mentor those teams remotely, please fill out this short interest form. Based on the feedback, we will contact you with more details. We appreciate your support!
Based off our research, it looks like @kenwah99 and team 5857 have experience in supporting FLL teams in Ghana. It would be great to connect to see if we can work together to help support the FLL program in Ghana. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in this thread or send me a direct message. Thank you!
the organization my team is under might have some spare ev3 kits after upgrading our program to the new system. if you would be interested i can contact them and see if we have some spares?
I’m fairly sure our FLL cabinet has an extra EV3 kit, since the upgrade to SPIKE Prime. Let me double-check this week and I’ll see if we can donate it if so!
Thank you to everyone who has already offered their support! So far we have four groups potentially interested, but we could use more. This weekend we have a meeting with our community partner, Makerspace, and the FLL Affiliate in Ghana, Coderina. If anyone has any questions for us, please let me know and we can try to have them addressed then. Afterwards, I plan to reach out to the groups who have expressed interest so that we can set up a meeting between yourselves and Makerspace so that we can have a formal introduction. Special thanks to @kenwah99 for providing a lot of insight and support!
I signed up our team on your form. Our middle schools may have 2-4 EV3 kits to spare as well. Feel free to contact me either here or on the email I sent.
We (team 3175) would be interested in learning more abuot this opportunity. We converted to the Spike controllers for FLL this year and have a few EV3 units that we could donate to the cause. Is the need only for the cotrollers or is there also a need for LEGO pieces for building attachents, etc.? What level of mentoring would be needed for the teams and would it be a summer/fall/winter commitment?
Hello,
Congrats on your team’s win on Einstein! The need is for the whole EV3 kit. We’re having other teams ship them to us in AZ, and then we’ll send them out to Ghana. As far as mentoring, the majority of the initial training will be handled by their local Affiliate Partner. We’re still trying to figure out how to best implement the remote mentoring, but one idea is to have the interested teams sponsor one of the FLL teams. It would last throughout the season (August 2022 to January 2023). How involved they would like to be would depend, but I imagine checking in with them at least once a week either via e-mail or call. If your team would like to send kits, just let me know and I can send you the address. Thanks again!
Do you have a list of the items (or know where I might find a list of items) that are in an EV3 kit somewhere? We have TONS of LEGO pieces and they are all mixed together. We should be able to put together 3-4 (close to) full sets with no problem.
Thanks - I will see how many we can put together in the next week or so and let you know what we can send you. Excited to be able to help with the effort!
The first 9 kits have been shipped! This will provide MakersPlace in Ghana with enough kits to begin their mentor training so that they’ll be prepared for this year’s season.
I have found one EV3 controller so far - I KNOW we have more, but have not figured out where they are currently located. The last time we used them was in the fall of 2019 as far as I know. I am 100% sure we can put the pieces together to complete the kits, so we will have at least one.
So it took a couple months of planning and a crash course in international shipping, but the first set of kits have arrived in Ghana! Later this month, the MakersPlace team is going to attend a local competition to get a better feel for how FLL works and to network. Now that they have kits, they will also begin training for the upcoming season. Thank you for everyone who has helped in this initiative. The next step will be to send the remaining kits. In a couple months, we will also start to connect the teams from Ghana with teams from around the world who have offered to support them via remote mentoring.
