My JFLL team which consisted of 4 boys (all 7yrs old except my 4yr old). We met Sundays for 2hrs. I won't do that again. It cut too much into family time considering we have soccer on Saturdays and Sundays. The boys only get to see their dad on the weekend so next year, we'll have to meet during the week. But I tell you, with all the sports (kids doing multiple sports except mine) it's very hard to get them all together.
Be ware, some FLL competitions are in November or December so the season can be shorter. Our exhibition for JFLL (non-competitive - each time got an award for what they were best at) and the FLL competition was Feb 10 so our season was much longer than most.
JFLL: the kit last year for the challenge was the Science and Technology kit sold by LEGO Education. If you can't find it, let me know b/c it was recently renamed. I bought kid since I planned on keeping it. This kit is a hybrid of basic LEGO bricks and Technic parts.
FLL: the LEGO MINDSTORMS robotics kit is mostly Technic pieces. The engineering is different from the RCX system (LEGO bricks). I've read several places that younger kids have a larger learning curve for Technic but I didn't see that w/ my 4yr old and 7yr old but the 4yr old has amazing fine motor skills.
If you want to get a feel for FLL competition, the author of "The Mayan Adventure" has a summer challenge. It's the Mars BAse Command challenge. It's all done at home and you can upload photos and challenge times to the website.
Here is a good blog.
http://www.thenxtstep.blogspot.com/ Here is the link for Mars BAse Command Challenge.
http://www.marsbasecommand.com/I had the Mars Base command mat printed at staples today for $4. It has the look and feel of a FLL mat but smaller and paper so easy to roll up and put away. I think this will be perfect for us to get our feet wet at home in an FLL-like format. You download the mission for free. If you decide to do it, it's $14.95 for the book which contains the design specs for the items which go on the mat that the robot will have to manipulate.
Brian Davis at the NXTSTep blog does some amazing stuff with datalogging and the NXT. My son did something similar for his science fair project and it went very well. LEGO Education sells a lot more stuff for the education side. I have two of LEGO Eds temperature sensors which can be used to test if snow is really a good insulator, if coffee mugs are good insulators, you can use to measure how far the temp changes every time you open the fridge....it's endless. Vernier also produces alot of sensors to be used w/ NXT as well. I also have the Compass sensor which we had great fun introducing a compass, locating items based on compass readings etc. My next purchase will likely be an infrared sensor which you use w/ an infrared-emitting ball to play Robo-soccer. Robo-soccer isn't as popular here in the US as it is in Europe but I know my boys will love it. I'm sure the programming will be quite challenging but they will learn tons.
