FIRST LEGO League Challenge Kickoff Celebration & Conference
FIRST Canada, in partnership with Bayview Glen School, was excited to offer a lineup of informative and engaging presentations at this year’s in-person Kickoff Celebration and Conference, which took place on Saturday, October 1, 2022! The Kickoff Celebration featured a book launch and an exclusive interview with Elaine Kachala, author of the newly-released book, Superpower? It also featured workshops by FIRST LEGO League Challenge teams, coaches and alumni from across the province! We have included the videos and presentations as a resource for you.
Saturday October 1, 2022
TIME
WORKSHOP TITLE AND LINK TO PRESENTATION
PRESENTERS' BIO
10:10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Équipe Francobotique is a French-language team of students from two different schools in Aurora, Ontario. In their 4th year of participation in the FLL Challenge program, this team has learned how to fully embrace the FLL core values while working together on the robot and innovation project. Living up to their team motto of ‘Always improving!’, they have evolved from a first-year team discovering all that FLL has to offer to a regional, provincial and national champion team. What’s their secret to success? Always have fun while learning new things!
Introduction to EV3 Programming
This two-time world champion award winning team will provide an introduction to EV3 programming.
Max and Anni, both are grade 8 students at W.H. Morden Public School in Oakville and award winners for the 2021-22 FLL Challenge Cargo Connect season:
- Waterloo Regional Tournament: Champion’s Award 1st place, and
- East Provincial: Champion’s Award 2nd place
- Western Edge Invitational: Robot Design 3rd place
11:10 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Calum Tsang serves as Ontario Provincial Judge Advisor for FIRST Canada and has been volunteering for FIRST since 2003. He is Senior Product Manager at Ford Motor Company in Oakville and holds a Masters degree in Engineering from the University of Toronto.
Santhiya K. is a 4-year FLL Challenge participant and was a member of Team #5831, Ctrl-Z Bayview Glen until 2020. Her team earned a Gracious Professionalism Award at the 2019 FIRST Championships in Detroit and earned a Champions Award at the 2020 CITY SHAPER Ontario Innovation Celebration.
Eric Borromeo has been involved in FIRST for 13 years with experience in FLL coaching, judging FLL Challenge Innovation Project, Robot Design and Core Values, head refereeing FLL Robot Performance, and judging FRC Team Attributes.
Sarah Sils is a FIRST Canada Senior Mentor and the producer of FIRST Canada LIVE!. In 2018, she won the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence while teaching STEM at St. Mildred’s Lightbourn.
1:10 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Using Micro:bit and MIT App Inventor for the Innovation Project
This two-time world champion award winning team will teach students how to use Micro:bit and MIT App Inventor for the Innovation Project component of the FIRST LEGO League Challenge program.
Dave Ellis was appointed President of FIRST Robotics Canada in 2021. Not only does he head up FIRST Canada, but he hosted the 2014 FIRST LEGO League International Open Canada at the University of Toronto. He is a long time volunteer at the FIRST Championships and has served as World Festival Head Core Values Judge and on the World Festival Planning Committee
In 2017, the FLL Volunteer of the Year Award was presented to Dave Ellis at the FIRST Championships in St. Louis
Robot Game Missions and Rules Explained
Jeff Laucke has been a mentor of FIRST LEGO League Team 192 (Royal Thunder Robotics) since 2005 and Tournament Director of the Sarnia Qualifying Tournament since 2006. In 2008, he became a provincial referee and in 2014 became the Head Referee for Ontario. He has also been a referee at 5 World Festivals first in St.Louis and then Detroit and the Head Referee for the Canada Cup for the past 2 virtual competitions. He is also a lead mentor for FIRST Tech Challenge Team 19473 and FIRST Robotics Competition Team 8113. When not having robot fun time, he is a grade 7/8 teacher.
Team Building: The Art of Building a Strong, Cohesive Team
Shanika Mahakul is an alumna of the FIRST LEGO League Challenge program, who has since served as an event volunteer, including as a provincial referee. She recently graduated from Western and is now working at FIRST Canada as the STEM Program Coordinator, brining coding and robotics experiences to students and teachers across Canada.
2:10 p.m .- 3:00 p.m.
Tips and Tricks for Advanced Robot Programming
Alice has been doing robotics since 2019. She has experience with LEGO, Micro:bit and Arduino platforms. She participated in various competitions. In the 2021-22 season, she participated in FLL events with team 52364. Eugene Lavrenov was a coach of team 52364.
Topic Selection & Project Management
The presenters are from TeamTechknights #31400 from Scarborough. The team was the winner of “Project Excellence award” at Ontario Innovation Celebration, The team also won Best project award at the West Ontario Championship in 2021-22 season.