It’s time to get to know some of our awesome teams from Eastern Washington! They may be small in size and rural in location, check out these future STEM leaders representing every corner of Washington State!

Our teams’ favorite reasons for joining First Lego League are all the fun we get to have learning more about new things. Building and trying out new ideas, as well as learning about programming robots. “Learning through trial and error, and solving a challenging problem that maybe you haven’t thought about before is one of the best things about FLL.” Isaac Whitaker

Being more than an hour away from a Walmart or Target store does have its disadvantages, but being a rural FLL team is definitely worth it. This year both our teams really stretched themselves and didn’t just come up with an innovative project, but came up with innovative projects that would impact our rural areas. It was interesting thinking about an idea that could help people living in big apartment buildings or in the middle of the city, but it really hit home when we realized that an idea could impact our families and neighbors. Where we live your “neighbor” could be next door or 5 miles down the road. You play next to a field of canola, or do your math homework after you’ve fed the cattle, it can be really different than an urban area. One of the amazing things about being a rural team is that we know everybody here! If we need an expert, we know somebody or know somebody that knows that expert. Rural areas really have close networks that are willing to help each other out. “Being a rural team means we get to do a lot of hands-on activities. We have the space, we can get the materials, and our coaches help us try it out.” Blake Carstensen

This year was definitely a challenge, as our entire school burned to the ground in October. We had started our research, building, and programming already and felt like we would for sure have to give up after we saw what was left of our building. Our community and extended community across eastern Washington really pulled together to help support our team. We had volunteers willing to donate new robots, materials, and supplies within 24 hours of the tragedy! We still had many challenges to overcome: our team members live spread out over a 40-mile area, and we couldn’t just walk to a house to meet after school. Finding a place to meet, and getting wi-fi took almost a month. “We felt our focus shift from building and programming to research.” (Calvin McArthur) “We had to keep a growth mindset. Realize that we couldn’t start where we had been, but we could start over, and still end up in a good place.”(Lily Hendrickson). Both teams also felt changing their names from what they originally picked out, to names that reflected the challenging season really helped them feel more connected to their community and their teammates.

Parents, teachers, and students grade 1-8 can come to the Prosser Library (902 7th St. Prosser, WA) to learn about the FIRST Washington programs teaching students to tackle real-world challenges and become STEM leaders of tomorrow!

Looking for photos from the 2022 FRC season? Check out our Flickr page to relive each event!

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