10 Tooth Gear to FLL World Championship
Donation protected
We are 10 Tooth Gear, a FIRST® Lego League Team made up of 10 schooled-at-home students and 1 student mentor, from Southeast Wisconsin! We have advanced to compete against over 100 other teams from around the world, from over 50 countries, at FIRST® World Championship, to be held April 24 – 27 in Detroit, MI. But to get there we need your support!!
First, let us tell you a little bit about FLL and our team!
What is FLL?
FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) is a program that supports children in order to introduce them to science and technology in a sporty atmosphere. FLL teams around the world compete in three categories: Robot Game, Project, and Core Values.
Our Robot
FLL teams design and construct robots using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® technology and program those robots to complete missions on a game-field in 2.5-minute competitions.
Our robot has had several revisions early on in the season. It’s been a lot of fun to learn how to program and to make decisions about what kind of sensors to use and what kind of attachments to build to successfully complete as many of the missions as we can in 2.5 minutes.
If you’d like to see a video of our best non-competition robot run or our best competition run (State Championship) so far, please check out our website at www.10toothgear.com and click on "Our Robot."
Our Project
Teams also develop research projects based on a real-world challenge that changes annually. This year’s theme, Into Orbit, allowed teams to explore challenges associated with living in space.
Core Values
As part of FIRST, FLL is designed to express the FIRST philosophies of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition through our Core Values:
Discovery: We explore new skills and ideas.
Innovation: We use creativity and persistence to solve problems.
Impact: We apply what we learn to improve our world.
Inclusion: We respect each other and embrace our differences.
Teamwork: We are stronger when we work together.
Fun: We enjoy and celebrate what we do!
Our team logo is a gear with ten teeth. The reason is because a gear has 10 equally important parts. None is more important than any other. If one is broken or missing, the whole doesn’t function as well as it would without it. That is how we view our team. We work better together, we encourage and respect each other, and we have fun doing it! We spend a lot of time together and we have become like family, even spending time together outside FLL. While we are rooting for each other, in FLL and in other areas of our lives, we also root for other teams and collaborate with some of them in order to make both teams better. Several times this season, we have attended community events at local libraries or restaurants to teach younger kids about FLL and Lego robotics. It’s very exciting to be able to help other kids discover a passion for STEM.
First, let us tell you a little bit about FLL and our team!
What is FLL?
FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) is a program that supports children in order to introduce them to science and technology in a sporty atmosphere. FLL teams around the world compete in three categories: Robot Game, Project, and Core Values.
Our Robot
FLL teams design and construct robots using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® technology and program those robots to complete missions on a game-field in 2.5-minute competitions.
Our robot has had several revisions early on in the season. It’s been a lot of fun to learn how to program and to make decisions about what kind of sensors to use and what kind of attachments to build to successfully complete as many of the missions as we can in 2.5 minutes.
If you’d like to see a video of our best non-competition robot run or our best competition run (State Championship) so far, please check out our website at www.10toothgear.com and click on "Our Robot."
Our Project
Teams also develop research projects based on a real-world challenge that changes annually. This year’s theme, Into Orbit, allowed teams to explore challenges associated with living in space.
After researching several challenges associated with long term space travel, we chose to tackle the problem of the muscle atrophy and bone density loss that astronauts experience while in space. First, we researched current strategies used by NASA to combat this problem. Then we met with experts, including a chiropractor, physical therapist, engineer, and NASA scientist, in order to learn as much as we could about human physiology and about the technologies already in use. Finally, we developed an exoskeleton, called WYRE (Wear Your Resistance Exoskeleton), which could be worn by astronauts in space to counteract the effects of microgravity. While we have done much of the suit construction ourselves (some of us tried sewing for the first time to do this!) we are working with engineers and fabricators to construct the parts that require skilled labor. We’ve had a prototype since Sectionals, but we have made improvements at each level of competition. By the time we get to Worlds, we are hoping to have a fully functional 2nd generation prototype to show the judges!
Core Values
As part of FIRST, FLL is designed to express the FIRST philosophies of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition through our Core Values:
Discovery: We explore new skills and ideas.
Innovation: We use creativity and persistence to solve problems.
Impact: We apply what we learn to improve our world.
Inclusion: We respect each other and embrace our differences.
Teamwork: We are stronger when we work together.
Fun: We enjoy and celebrate what we do!
Our team logo is a gear with ten teeth. The reason is because a gear has 10 equally important parts. None is more important than any other. If one is broken or missing, the whole doesn’t function as well as it would without it. That is how we view our team. We work better together, we encourage and respect each other, and we have fun doing it! We spend a lot of time together and we have become like family, even spending time together outside FLL. While we are rooting for each other, in FLL and in other areas of our lives, we also root for other teams and collaborate with some of them in order to make both teams better. Several times this season, we have attended community events at local libraries or restaurants to teach younger kids about FLL and Lego robotics. It’s very exciting to be able to help other kids discover a passion for STEM.
Our Journey
10 Tooth Gear is in its second year as a team, and the team includes seven veteran and three first-year members, ranging in ages from 9 to 14 years old. Despite being a relatively new team, we were nominated for several awards at both the Mukwonago Regional and the Mukwonago Sectional competitions. We earned top robot performance score and won the prestigious Champion’s Award at both events! Our success at those levels helped us advance to the state competition. On February 23, we competed at the WI State Championship in Cleveland, WI, and were again nominated for several awards, including the Champion’s Award. We took home the Teamwork award, received 2nd place robot performance score, and were one of two Wisconsin teams invited to compete at World Championship in April. The field in WI went from 377 teams at the start of the season, to two teams moving on to Worlds. We recognize what a huge honor this is, and we are looking forward to representing WI well!
But in order to do that, we need your support! The fact that we are all schooled at home, means we are pretty unique in the FLL world. We have no supporting school district to help us fund our expenses, so all expenses have to be raised, or funded directly, by our 8 families. Your donations will go towards these team costs:
registration - $1000
prototype improvements - $2000
booth construction / decoration - $1000
swag, shirts, printing, signage - $1000
In addition to the above costs, the travel expenses for 10 team members, 3 mentor/coaches, and their families, to attend Worlds (hotel, food, parking) will be upwards of $1000 per family. If we raise more money than we need to cover the team costs, we will use it to offset travel expenses for our schooled-at-home families.
So…what do you think? Will you help us with this huge goal? Our team is so excited to be able to participate! We are thankful for anything that you can contribute…no contribution is too small!
If you’d prefer to donate in a way that would allow us to keep all the money you give (gofundme takes a small percentage), or if you are interested in supporting our team as a sponsor and having your company or organizational logo on our signage and t-shirts, please see our opportunities at www.10toothgear.com/support-us.
Thank you so much for your support!
10 Tooth Gear is in its second year as a team, and the team includes seven veteran and three first-year members, ranging in ages from 9 to 14 years old. Despite being a relatively new team, we were nominated for several awards at both the Mukwonago Regional and the Mukwonago Sectional competitions. We earned top robot performance score and won the prestigious Champion’s Award at both events! Our success at those levels helped us advance to the state competition. On February 23, we competed at the WI State Championship in Cleveland, WI, and were again nominated for several awards, including the Champion’s Award. We took home the Teamwork award, received 2nd place robot performance score, and were one of two Wisconsin teams invited to compete at World Championship in April. The field in WI went from 377 teams at the start of the season, to two teams moving on to Worlds. We recognize what a huge honor this is, and we are looking forward to representing WI well!
But in order to do that, we need your support! The fact that we are all schooled at home, means we are pretty unique in the FLL world. We have no supporting school district to help us fund our expenses, so all expenses have to be raised, or funded directly, by our 8 families. Your donations will go towards these team costs:
registration - $1000
prototype improvements - $2000
booth construction / decoration - $1000
swag, shirts, printing, signage - $1000
In addition to the above costs, the travel expenses for 10 team members, 3 mentor/coaches, and their families, to attend Worlds (hotel, food, parking) will be upwards of $1000 per family. If we raise more money than we need to cover the team costs, we will use it to offset travel expenses for our schooled-at-home families.
So…what do you think? Will you help us with this huge goal? Our team is so excited to be able to participate! We are thankful for anything that you can contribute…no contribution is too small!
If you’d prefer to donate in a way that would allow us to keep all the money you give (gofundme takes a small percentage), or if you are interested in supporting our team as a sponsor and having your company or organizational logo on our signage and t-shirts, please see our opportunities at www.10toothgear.com/support-us.
Thank you so much for your support!
Fundraising team: 10 Tooth Gear (8)
Colleen Boehm
Organizer
Waukesha, WI
Becca Hamill Trefeis
Team member
Deanna Lazuardi Wesolowski
Team member
Jeff Stoub
Team member
Jennifer Franke
Team member