About JRL

Team Driven
Team Driven is the FIRST Robotics team at Lee's Summit High School in Lee's Summit, Missouri. Following a very successful inagural year, the team began a summer camp outreach program which quickly expanded to include a six week league - the Junior Robotics League. For more information about Team Driven, visit http://www.teamdriven.us.

The League
The Junior Robotics League (JRL) has been a smashing success since it was founded by Team Driven in 2008. Each year the Game Design Committee (GDC) designs a new challenge for elementary and middle school students. Participants form teams or 2 to 6 members and have six weeks to design and build a shoe box sized robot to complete the challenge.

Purpose
First and foremost, the purpose of the Junior Robotics League is to inspire young minds to consider and explore the fields of engineering, science, and technology by fostering curiosity and problem solving in a safe, fun, and exciting environment.

League Model
Students in Kindergarten through 8th grade form teams with classmates, neighbors, friends, etc and the parents will serve as the team coaches.  After the game is revealed, the parents will help the students brainstorm and prototype ideas to come up with a starting robot design.  The students will build the robot and test how it works.  Students should then continue to see if they can make it work better or decide if they need to make a change because it does not work as expected.  This process continues until they are satisfied with the design and the robot performance.  This might take the full build season but the goal is for the students to continue to work to try and improve the robot so they have their best robot by competition.

Getting Started
Prior to the kick off event, a training session will be offered to help get new teams get started.  This is a train the trainer type session where parents who will serve as coaches are introduced to the robot build as well as basic programming of the robots.  Throughout the build season, Team Driven members are available at the workshop nights to help answer questions and resolve issues you might have.  We can also be contacted via email for more immediate needs.

Season Kick Off
The season starts with a kick off event where the new game is revealed to all participants.  Participants will see the playing field, watch a short video introducing the game, and receive a rules manual. Teams will then have six weeks to design, build, and test their robots. During this time they will also create a team identity and prepare to compete for a number of other awards.

 Getting Help
During the season, teams can get help at any of the open workshop nights hosted at the Team Driven shop. The schedule for these workshops is posted on the Calendar. The JRL Staff can also be reached via email at jrlprogram.director@gmail.com.

The Competition
The season concludes with a 2 day competition in mid/late Nov.  Teams will have their robots inspected to prior to their practice, qualification, and elimination matches. Participants will also have the opportunity to compete for a number of other awards throughout the weekend. Parents, family and friends are all invited to come and watch the competition. For more information about specific dates for this year, check out the calendar.