The First Lego League competition represents my very first experience with programming. I was 11 when my team made it to the state championship. There are two parts to the First Lego League. The first part is the project. In this project, the participating team is required to identify a real world problem that relates to given theme. In 2010, the theme was bio-engineering. After this the team must present a solution to the problem. The second part is the robot game, wherein a team must build and program a robot to manipulate objects on a field, taking each object from a specified start state to a specified end state. Points are awarded for each object that is correctly configured in their end state by the end of the round.
My involvement in the team was in the building and programming of the robot, and, to a lesser extent, the project. In the time that I spent with my team, I learned how to work in a large group and how to respect others responsibilities. Overall, the greatest difficulty I had was not in working with others, but in learning to accept that, in practice, there are tradeoffs, and there are strategies, but rarely is there ever a “correct” solution to the problem. It is important to recognize that the real world is messy. That’s part of what makes it so fascinating. Instead of trying the same thing over and over again because it “should” be correct, a better strategy is to step back and reexamine the problem, to factor in the messy parts, and see it as a challenge to overcome. FFL was difficult and, at times exhausting, but it was rewarding. I am better for the experience and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to work with such passionate mentors and teammates.