Team Activities and Costs

What a team does each season

  • A team forms when parents/guardians pre-register their students and two parents volunteer to coach
  • The team meets once per week, for about 90 minutes (coaches adjust the schedule as needed)
    • A team’s season often lasts about 12 meetings, but can run a bit shorter or longer depending on coach/parent interests
    • Meetings are often held at Anacortes School District facilities, but can be held anywhere parents agree
    • Meetings held after school make transportation easier, but may be difficult for students coming at the end of a long day
      • Teams meeting directly after school may use an “activity break” between the end of school and the beginning of a team meeting for the team to share snacks provided by a parent snack rotation
  • Teams may go on field trips so that team members can interact with the local community and experts related to the seasonal challenge; parental organization and support is generally needed for this to happen
  •  Parents who are not team coaches help by taking turns supporting team meetings as mentors or assistants
  • Teams show off their results at FLL Explore Expositions
    • All teams attend an Exposition; it is a fun and rewarding capstone to the team experience
    • Each team member is rewarded with a token to remember their season
    • Each team is interviewed by adult Reviewers and receives an award based on their strengths

What you (parents) pay each season

ARBC collects a per-student team “startup contribution” each season on behalf of each sponsored team; the amount is shown on the “JOIN” page under “ARBC season details.”  This contribution is not due until a student becomes a team member, but because this money is spent to launch the team, it is not refundable.  The amount you pay is less than a proportional amount of all team costs; our community (through ARBC) supplies materials and volunteer labor to reduce team expenses.

What it costs to run a team each season

The cost to run an FLL Explore team for a season starts with team registration fees, acquiring WeDo sets and other LEGO building materials, and fees for attending an Exposition.  Team uniforms (in the form of t-shirts) and (possibly) field trips or other experiences increases costs.

A bare-bones “first season” could cost as little as $400; a broader/deeper “first season” might cost $500-$600.  An established team’s operating costs can be as low as $250-$300/year in succeeding years because the LEGO robotics materials are reusable.  ARBC maintains sets of LEGO robotics materials that we loan to the teams we sponsor, and we hold our own local Expositions to keep costs as low as possible.