The FLL is not remote control robots. the robots navigate around the mat. They can come back to home base to have a program run on the brick or to change attachments. Generally, the FLL challenges are not done with only one program but rather several programs which kids run with specific buttons on the brick or by a menu. But they are not controlling the robots movements via a remote control.
For my JFLL team, the theme was energy. The boys had to pick something in a room in the house and determine where it's energy came from. My team did an energy audit of the kitchen. they chose the blender. So we determined where our electricity comes from - not easy b/c of the deregulation of the power company. Much to my shock, the power plant was very excited to have the team come. they had this whole presentation ready for them including snacks and drinks. We all got official manager hard hats to keep and had a tour of the plant. the boys then went home and built out of legos, where the electricity comes from, how it gets to our house, right down to the blender. After the competition, we took the whole LEGO creation back to the powerplant so the boys could show it to the engineers. we had lunch with them all and had a great time. Of course, being a company, the took photos and wrote an article for their national company newspaper. lol.
Oh and the LEGO creation had to use at least one simple machine and have at least one moving part. I basically let the team do all the work. However, when we got to hte exhibition, where most teams were school teams, the posters were all typed up, no spelling errors, perfect grammar, etc ...
