To: Parents of 5Th and 6Th Grade

To: Parents of 5th and 6th Grade Students

From: Mr. Mike Callinan

Subject: Sparbots, 5th/6th Grade

The Athens Academy Middle School has sponsored an FLL (FIRST Lego League) team since 2005. FLL is a rewarding competition for Middle School students around the world to discover the excitement of studying science and technology while learning how to engineer, design, build, and program robots using specialized Lego kits. The competition also requires teams to conduct research on an annual theme to give presentations to their community about their research. This year’s FLL competition theme is called: Smart Move. Complete descriptions of FLL can be found at www.usfirst.org.

Our team is called Sparbots, which represents our school mascot, the Spartans, with robotics, hence Spar(tan)(ro)bots. The FLL team is open to all 5th and 6th grade students. The team will meet in Mr. Callinan’s classroom in the Bertelsmann Building on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school from 3:20 until 4:20. The FLL competition has a limit of 10 students for team membership. A meeting will be held after school at 3:20 next Tuesday, 25 August, in Mr. Callinan’s classroom. All students interested in joining the Sparbots should attend this meeting. We will be setting up the competition table, building obstacles, looking at research projects, and deciding what course to take in the fall for our eventual competition against other teams in Georgia. Competition will take place in early December with championship competitions in January, pending success in regional competition. The 10-member team will be selected after the Sparbot meeting taking place on 11 September. Notification of team members will be made on Mr. Callinan’s Sparbots homepage the following week. Qualities that will be evaluated for team membership are:

·  Enthusiasm for studying robotics, technology, and science

·  Ability to collaborate with teammates and stay focused on the task

·  Presentation skills, both oral and technological (slideshow, graphical, etc.)

·  Research skills, ability to learn about current issues of transportation by talking/emailing research scientists, finding and crediting information on the Internet, etc.

______I support my child’s participation in Sparbot’s

Parent’s Signature

______Student’s Name ______Date