[Ucrea] Volunteer Opportunity: FIRST Lego League Tournament in Riverside

[Cristina L Otegui]

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September 12, 2024
To:
UCR Emeriti & Retirees

From:
UCR Retirement Center on Behalf of the FIRST Lego League Tournament in Riverside

Re:
Volunteer Opportunity: FIRST Lego League Tournament in Riverside

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Emeriti and retirees are invited to volunteer and support the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) tournaments on Saturday, November 2, 2024 and Saturday, December 14, 2024. In the FLL tournaments, teams of children ages 9-12 build robots from Lego bricks and program them to carry out a series of missions. They also prepare a presentation on their engineering design choices, and they study and propose a solution to a need related to the year's theme, which this year is undersea exploration.

Continuing expansion of FIRST LEGO League in the Inland Empire has brought a milestone in 2024: two tournaments on the same day. This, in turn, brings a challenge: recruiting enough volunteers to make these events fun and memorable for the children who compete.

Volunteer Criteria

*         Location: The first two tournaments of the season will be on Saturday, November 2, 2024 in Riverside at California Baptist University and in Perris at the Val Verde Unified School District headquarters. The larger Regional Tournament on Saturday, December 14 will be held at UCR.

*         Duration: Each event will run from approximately 8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m., and volunteers should plan to stay the entire time.

*         Duties: Most volunteers will work as referees, scoring the robot performance, or as judges, reviewing the teams' presentations and their demonstration of FLL Core Values: discovery, innovation, inclusion, impact, teamwork, and fun. Other volunteer roles include timekeeping, scorekeeping, supervising the practice tables, and keeping teams on schedule. All volunteers are trained online beforehand and briefed on the morning of the event, and volunteers work in teams so first-timers are never on their own. No knowledge of robotics or undersea exploration is necessary.

*         Register to volunteer: FLL has strong youth protection policies, so volunteers must register and be vetted in advance. To begin the process, go to https://www.firstinspires.org/, create an account, accept the privacy terms, and authorize a background check (at no cost to you). Approval typically takes a couple of days, and then the volunteer can use the "My Dashboard" feature to sign up for events and roles.


For more information
For any questions or if you are interested in volunteering, please contact Mitch Boretz, UCR retiree and FLL Head Referee for Southern California by email at mitchboretz at gmail.com<mailto:mitchboretz at gmail.com> or by phone at (909) 200-8583.

UCR has been a supporter of FLL for many years and your service can make these events a positive and memorable experience for up-and-coming scientists and engineers in the Inland Empire, and their families. It's a lot of fun, and a day well spent.

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