Who We Are

6th graders, 7th Graders, soccer players, band and orchestra musicians, theater actors, cross country runners, Boy Scouts, 4H members, and of course, we are FIRST LEGO LEAGUERS from Ames Iowa!

Why are We Raising Money?

Our team was one of 2 teams in our state (of over 550 teams) to be invited to the FIRST® LEGO® League North American Open Championship.  This is a three-day event at LEGOLAND California in May.  We have 9 team members and 3 coaches to get there which will cost over $1000 per member! 

And what is FIRST Lego League?

FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is an international program with over 52,000 teams, created by FIRST® and LEGO®, designed to get children interested in and excited about science, technology and engineering. Every year, FIRST releases a new challenge that engages the teams in three parts: project idea, robot building and programing, and core values. The challenge this year is “Animals Allies”, which focuses on improving human and animal interactions.

What Makes Us Awesome

Our team’s name is El3phant Squared!  Why? We have 9 members on our team (3 squared) and our project focuses on the declining population of elephants in American zoos.  Our team research has found that elephant’s population in zoos is declining and while their treatment in zoos is great, it can be made even better with help from the community and recycled materials.  We created great ideas that increase community involvement and make use of inexpensive recycled materials to help zoos make Elephants thrive in their zoo environment.

We also built a cool robot!  We challenged ourselves this year by using all available sensors to accomplish the challenge’s missions.  Each type of sensor adds more possibilities but also introduces a whole new level of difficulty in programming and the number of things that can go wrong.  It’s taken a lot of hard work but has paid off in what we’ve learned and what we can do.

TEAM WORK.  While we are a new team this year, we have all known each other since kindergarten (and longer).    Core Values is all about working as a team while helping the teams we compete against.  We are always turning whatever we can into a team builder and take pride in helping the other team on the robot board by accomplishing the shared mission, and giving them 60 points!

Thank you for your help!  

Look for more updates soon.