Rookie Year Recap

Our rookie year, Ocean Odyssey, was a lot of work and a lot of fun.

Our team members were 4 boys and 2 girls, aged 8 to 11, all homeschooled. A couple of the kids had done a little bit with the robot but for the most part it was all new, to me as well. The season was busy and chaotic, as we figured out the robot, the FLL organization, and what was expected at competition.

We ran the team as a cooperative effort, with all parents helping out in some way. I acted as head coach, another mom assisted me with the technical meetings, the one dad in our group guided the kids in the project, and another mom kept time the younger siblings occupied.

In mid-November, we competed at a regional tournament along with 15 other teams (mostly from private schools in Toronto). Our robot had a high score of 127 that day. Throughout our three matches, the team got points from five different missions, but never managed to score on more than three missions in a single round. Nevertheless, we had once been told that a rookie team is doing well if they manage to solve two missions, so we were still proud of ourselves.

At that same tournament, we were surprised and excited to win the first-place award for our project, and to place fourth overall, earning a spot at Provincials. Our project was about pollution in the Great Lakes, and how it affects the beluga whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The team proposed using engineered wetlands to extract the pollution, and (working with Citizens' Environment Watch) had learned how to do benthic invertebrate testing to monitor pollution levels and measure the success of these proposed wetlands.

At Provincials (three weeks later), we were missing two team members so the team had to rework their project skit, and pair up differently to run the robot during the robot matches. The kids had also reworked some of the missions, with the result that the robot's high score that day was 172. That was the 21st-highest score of the day -- not good enough to advance into the "sweet sixteen". They were able to score points in 6 missions by this point, but were only able to score in 4 missions (plus move some of the bonus items into higher-scoring positions) during a single round.

In the other competitive aspects, the kids did even better, winning a first-place trophy for the "Innovative Solution" in their research project.

These competitions were a highlight for the the team - the level of excitement is unbelievable at these events, and the kids loved it. (The parents took Tylenol.) All-in-all, it felt like a very successful season: friendships were forged and lots of fun was had by all.