Lego Tournement Preparation

    Last year My Mom, the boys and I came down to the F.I.R.S.T. LEGO Tournement at Roger Williams University to see DH dressed in black and white stripes as a referee.  He has been volunteering there for the last few years.  B and I participated in the Jr F.I.R.S.T. Lego League, and always come to the robotics tournement to enjoy the spectacle and see what people came up with as ideas.  We cheered the teams, toured the University Robotics department, and came home at a decent hour.   DH dragged home late, but happy, we saw him for a few seconds on TV.

    The experience was rewarding however.  Each year the competition required us to investigate an area of science or technology that is somewhat neglected, to try very hard to find local experts, and to explain it to children.  We have investigated nano-technology, handicaped accessibility, the ocean, and this year, where our energy comes from.  We have toured buildings in our town, networking with city hall and the library staff, visited a lab at MIT, played scale games with "2x-ing" ourselves with chalk outlines on the parking lot, explored areas of math and science usually not touched on until high school or college.

    B formed friendships.  My husband and I developed organizational, management, and coaching skills, we helped out a volunteer organization, and we occasionally had fun.  The children almost always had fun, but that was a side benefit for us.  Fun is harder to maintain and channel than Rewarding, but that is another topic.

    This Spring when we found I was pregnant, my DH said he would coach the team for me.  While this meant I didn’t have to come up to speed on mechanics and the particular programing language, I felt bittersweet about it.  After all, the robotics were cool, and I wouldn’t get to play with them.  DH also told  me not to sponsor a JR FIRST Lego League team, because our own kids would not be in it, I was pregnant after all, and why split my energies.  I had to grudgingly admit he was right.  Part of me still feels that if I work hard for the benefit of the general community, I am being altruistic and noble, but if I work hard only for my family, then I am being selfish.  I know that most people do wind up volunteering to benefit their own children, and in the process benefit other people’s children.  I’ve read John Piper’s ideas about how it’s OK to enjoy the good work you do.  But part of me still feels selfish for homeschooling in the first place.
    However I felt about it though, if our son was going to continue into Lego robotics in a team setting then we needed to create the team.  A team can be an important method of accountability.  So many of my friends have told me that when they just bought the Lego robotics kit for their kids to explore informally, it sat in the box after Christmas once the coolness factor wore off.  I figured one way for kids to continue on with the resource was to have a competition to aim at.
    Even with my husband coaching, I still "got," to do the e-mail communications, recruit families, and mind M during meetings (he was and is not thrilled to be too young yet even for Jr F.I.R.S.T. Lego).   We had decided to hold Saturday meetings; loosing all Saturday mornings for preparing for team meetings, and all Saturday Afternoons to meetings got old pretty quickly. 
    To get families to join us, I had to step out of my Homeschooling comfort zone – the Evangelical Christian groups.  The time commitment, money commitment, and whacky-ness of the idea just didn’t appeal to most of my acquaintances.  Lego sounds like a toy, a waste of time.  If you  aren’t a techy geek, why would learning programming and mechanics be an academic enough pursuit?  If you’ve already bought an expensive science home school curricula, you don’t want it laying around on a shelf mocking you, so a team effort is redundant.  Saturdays are precious.  Also, as it was my first year figuring out the finances, giving a range of expenses didn’t fly well.
    So, since it wasn’t going to fall into my lap, I had to think of another way to make it happen.  I put out a e-mail on my state’s inclusive homeschooling list.  My husband and I had decided that we would buy the robot kit, and commission a man from D’s work (D is my husband) to build us the table.  That way the ownership was clear once the competition was over – we keep the hardware.  Only asking the other families to split the national, and state registration fees, and incidental fees made it cheaper and more appealing for them to join us.  I also listed all the ways parents should be prepared to inconvenience themselves, so there were not too many nasty surprises.  The response was so enthusiastic, that we had to figure out a fair way to limit the team size!
    We investigated meeting at the YMCA, the library, and DH’s work.  We settled on his work because we could store things for free, and use the lab computers and break room.  Our town’s policy on library use is that only groups free and open to anyone dropping in may use the space, since we collected dues and limited membership, that was that.  They did let us use their building as our project subject, give us a tour, and let us present our findings in the lobby though.  Once we got closet space at DH’s work, we didn’t investigate the YMCA much more. 
    The one downside of the location is that when the 8 little boys get rowdy, they are in a lab with expensive equipment, and lots of valuable samples.  DH has had to make them run laps in the parking lot.  It is a good thing that 3 other Dads have become regular assistant coaches!
    I was very nervous about how we would all get along.  I took a leaf from the Peacemakers’ website
and wrote a paragraph about how we meant to deal with conflict, what behaviors were acceptable and not, and how we would deal with those.  Just putting the expectations out there helped a great deal.  We haven’t actually had to ask anyone to leave the group, though we have had to reprimand a few children, but since we already told them and their parents our expectations, they have accepted it.  Clear unapologetic leadership has worked better than sorting ourselves by philosophy and hoping that will solve all our problems without our having to talk to each other about the problems. 
    Since we were not an explicitly Christian team, we have miss praying with the children.  It gets hard to know when you have started a meeting, when to eat snack, etc.  We have occasionally used scripture to council the children, especially the other evangelical boy,  N.  N compared his weekly church time with B and was happy to find some one else his age who had to spend as much time in church.  The practicing Catholic families were very similar in their parenting expectations to us, so they were easy to get along with.  Many of the parents have said things like "wow, I guess all 10 year old boys act this way, not just mine."  The parents have been great: bringing snacks, assistant coaching, finding resources, suggesting ideas, working at today’s Tournement.
    A few weeks ago, DH  told me that he understood why I’d had such trouble getting the Jr F.I.R.S.T. Lego team to jell, not impose an adult vision on the children while coaching them through the steps they had to complete and also managing their fantastic expectations.  It’s nice to be understood.   
    Last night DH had to go down to Roger Williams to help set up.  We hadn’t recruited anyone for that task.  (Although at this very minute 4 parents are helping to keep order in the "Pitt area" and 2 are guarding the "Pitt area" so it’s not like they are slouches, just D got stuck with the night job)  A book on leadership I read recently said that a leader is the one who does what other’s can’t or won’t do to accomplish a task that he wants done.  That quote made it all seem noble, not like we’ve been had.  DH said the other coaches were talking about their teams, and how hard it is to get them to to jell, recruit families, not impose an adult vision on the children while coaching them through the steps they had to complete and also managing their fantastic expectations.  Then they said, "I don’t know why we are competing tomorrow, the HomeSchool teams are just going to wipe the board and win all the trophies anyway."  DH spoke up and said, "Well, I have a homeschool team, and we have had all the problems you’ve mentioned!" 
"Wow!"  they said, "I guess all FLL teams act this way, not just mine."
    So, DH and B got up this morning at 5AM to pack, and hit the road.  B had more trouble sleeping last night than he did on Christmas Eve.  DH looks very, very tired indeed.  He got in last night at 10:30 after working a full day at work.  M, Mom and I are planning on traveling down to see the robotic competition part, then head home before I’m wiped out.  DH and B plan on eating supper at McDonald’s, as a special treat. 

    I’m so thankful we were able to get this far, B has a team, and will be marching in that parade this year, not just watching it.  Whether or not they place in any award, I’m satisfied that DH and I and the other families achieved this opportunity for him and the team.