Exit 5 Robotics recently concluded their 2013/2014 FLL robotics competition season with the FLL NJ State Finals in March and the FLL NAOC (North American Open Championship) in May.  The NJ State Finals this year hosted a record 72 teams.  Against this tough field, the team walked out with two shiny pieces of hardware, a well deserved Champion’s Award (3rd Place) and a well earned Robot Performance Award (2nd Place).  The finish was enough to qualify them for the NAOC in LegoLand / Carlsbad, California, their third consecutive international finals competition.

The NAOC this year hosted 76 of the top teams from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and specially invited teams from South Korea.  In three days of intense but friendly competition, they tweaked their robot, practiced their project presentation and admittedly had some fun around LegoLand.  Against this stacked field of competitors, the Exit 5 Robotics team ended up being one of only thirteen teams with two or more judging callbacks.  As the last day of the competition closed, the results for all the teams were in.  Exit 5 Robotics received a piece of shiny hardware in the form of a Gracious Professionalism Award (2nd Place), an Honorable Mention – Research Project, Honorable Mention – Core Values, and placement in the top 40% of robot scores.  Congratulations to the Pithons from Scarsdale, CA and the Moovers from Kildeer, IL for their fantastic Champion’s Award 1st Place and Champion’s Award 2nd Place respectively.

With the close of this season, and the transition of many members on to other endeavors such as FTC, it would be a great time to make special mention of the first individuals to ever win three NJ State FLL Champion’s Awards: Alice Huang, Stephanie Tam, Evelyn Huang, Chloe Lam, and Flora Xia.  Also, special thanks go to Tiffany Yu for her work in mentoring the team this year.

Upon returning home to NJ, the team had a lot to share about their experiences with their peers.  Thoughts from each person on the team.

FLL is of the most life-changing experiences that can happen in someone’s life.  It takes science, math, research, creativity, and critical thinking skills and makes people exercise them to the max, but keeps it fun and appealing! Even those who hate those particular subjects will start to love them.  And there’s even more joy in the heart-pounding competitions.  Something fun and educational… that’s what FLL truly boils down to.

I really loved FLL and the Nature’s Fury FLL season.  I learned a lot from being on the robotics team.  I enjoyed being with my team mates.  It was an amazing experience to be with all my friends.  Having grown up watching the older girls participate in robotics, I really enjoyed this first year on the team.

The FLL season was so much fun! I loved working with my teammates or just hanging out. I would like to thank all the professionals we met with, especially the ones from Livingston. We couldn’t have accomplished this without your help. Overall this year was really fun and everyone did such a great job. GO EXIT 5!

FLL is an experience that I’ll always hold close to my heart. It took a lot, but it gave back so much in the form of lessons for both robotics and for life: working with people is       challenging but rewarding, sometimes things that can only be described as “stuff” happens…but with a little patience, persistence, and creativity they can be fixed, and of course have food around because it makes everything better! I’ve come out of this a better person than I went in (I think…) and I look forward to what we will achieve in the future.

I really enjoyed this season, even with all of the highs and lows, it was fun working with everyone, and working hard on the robots.  I learned a lot about technology, and in my last year of FLL, I learned many lessons that’ll help me later in life.

FLL is a awesome and fun thing that teaches you to work together. I t shows and helps you with things you would need to know in the future.An example is, 1 rotation =360 degrees.During the NJASK, a test we take, there was a question on degrees and I used my knowledge from robotics to help answer the question. FLL also halped me make many new friends. In my opinion it is time consuming but it’s worth the time.

As a “veteran” of FLL, aging out of this competition, I have already competed in 4 seasons and been to 10 competitions in states all over the nation, and although is started as a hobby, it has now become part of my life to compete, go to practice and attend outreaches several times a year. I love the adrenaline at the competitions, the knowledge that is gained from the project, and overall, I love the great memories made with all my teammates and coaches throughout the years. Although I am sad to be moving on from FLL, Walt Disney once said, “Keep Moving Forward,” so I am excited to try my luck at reaching my goal of going to the World Festival with my new team in FTC.

FLL, has been a totally new and amazing experience. It has taught me things that I wouldn’t have known, and made me realize the potential that I have. For example, I learned how to do more thorough research and be confident with what I’m saying, explaining, or selling. This helped me in school and in other situations. FLL has taught me many useful things.

I‘ve been doing robotics for three years and it’s only taken me a few months to learn the one thing that I find most important, to have fun with those who you consider close enough to be family.

I think that participating in FLL has changed me in many ways. I’ve learned how to do so many different things, I’ve made lots of new friends, and it has been a great new experience to teach me several life lessons. Participating in FLL has made me a different person.  By participating in FLL, I’ve learned how to do a lot of different things. Before being on a robotics team, programming a robot was like a foreign language. I was clueless about building a robot too. Now that I’ve participated in FLL, my knowledge about robots has grown so much, and because of the project part of robotics, I learned some valuable tips and tricks about researching. Core Values helped expand my knowledge about teamwork, and it also helped me work within a group. Now, group projects in school seem much simpler because of Core Values. When researching for these projects, I can use little tricks that I learned from project, such as using Ctrl+F when I want to find specific information on a webpage or in a document. Robot programming and design really helps for math, because that’s how I learned that 720° is 2 360° turns. Being on a robotics team gave me the chance to meet a lot of new people and make a lot of new friends. At all of the outreaches that we did, there were new people to meet, and it was fun to talk to them about FLL and robotics. Core Values taught me so many key essentials to be a good person. It helped me learn about teamwork, which helps with group projects, and losing or winning graciously. Gracious Professionalism helped me so much, because winning and losing graciously can be very difficult. Learning this with my friends also made a difference. Learning together made me feel good about myself, and discovery was also crucial in FLL. I felt proud when I discovered new things, and I have learned that winning isn’t everything. Most of all, I learned that the whole point of FLL is to have fun. Of course, learning new things is vital too, but it’s so important to have fun.  Finally, participating in FLL helped me learn life lessons, such as “What we discover is more important than what we learn.” I hope that I will continue to learn more from FLL.    

Enjoying the 2014 NAOC

Celebrating at the FLL NJ State Finals