FLL Club

2025-2026 Chairs: Sakshi Thawani

fll@medinapta.org

FIRST LEGO League is a team-based STEM program that inspires students to explore, build, and compete while developing confidence, critical thinking, and teamwork.

Jump to: What is FLL? | FLL Tournaments | Financial Commitment | FAQ | Policies | Recap

What is FLL?

FIRST® LEGO® League

FIRST® LEGO® League introduces science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to children ages 4-16* through fun, exciting hands-on learning. Participants gain real-world problem-solving experience through a guided, global robotics program, helping today's students and teachers build a better future together. Our three divisions inspire youth to experiment and grow their critical thinking, coding, and design skills through hands-on STEM learning and robotics.

Why FLL?

The FLL Challenge participation builds confidence, teamwork, coding, engineering, and research skills in students.
 

Info Night

Arts Club, Languages Club, and Robotics Club are co-hosting an Info Night is TBD. The club chairs will share information about their club and answer any questions. Please join us! Both parents and students are welcome to attend!

FLL Tournaments

Important Deadlines

PARTICIPATE IN FLL: HOW TO START

1. Read the FAQ to understand student time commitments and parental involvement.
2. Form a team (3-7 students, 2 parent team managers)
• View or add your information to the FLL Parent Interest Form to connect with parents of other interested students. 
• We will use the Interest sign-up to help connect potential team members with the team manager.
• Your child can ask classmates and buddies who might be good fits to establish a team
• For additional help, please email fll@medinapta.org. 
3. Register on the PTA website 
• Interested in leading a team? Sign up to be a team coach. 
• Interested in joining a team? Sign-up on general registration form
• We will help you to officially register your team on FIRST after team formation. 
4. Start your first team meeting

FLL Tournament Season

The Robotics Club FLL tournament season runs from September  2025 through the local qualifier tournament. This year's tournament date and location are not yet announced. Last year's tournament was held at Ballard High School on December 15th, 2024. Should your team advance beyond the qualifier tournament, your team may decide to extend the season into January/February.

Signing up to participate in FLL tournaments requires a large time and financial commitment! 4th and 5th grade parents, please read below before opting into FLL tournaments. 

Financial Commitment

Required: 4th/5th graders who participate in FLL tournaments must pay the team fee. This includes team registration with FLL, take-home robotics materials for use by the team (team robot, team challenge set, tabletop with map), and the local/qualifier tournament registration fee. Fees do not include tournament fees for state or national tournaments, should the team qualify.

Recommended: In addition to the TBD team fee, we recommend that families also purchase robotics materials for their own home use and practice. Additional items include:

• robot set: $539 + taxes and shipping (likely reusable for the 2025-2026 FLL season) 
• Challenge kit: $99 + taxes and shipping (new every year)
• (optional) table top: costs vary, a build can be under $200, or buying a portable one from AndyMarks. 

Thus, a minimum additional cost of $638 + tax and shipping is needed for a student to be most effective in helping their team succeed in the FLL tournament.

Time Commitment Required

During the season, team members should expect to devote approximately 2-5 hours per week to FLL: less near the beginning of the season, but likely more during the weeks leading up to the tournament.

Team members must commit to:

• Weekly team meetings with your entire team
• Weekly small group meetings to work on your group's assigned mission
• at-home practice 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How many hours are expected from a kid during an entire FLL season?

Teams are encouraged to meet in-person once or twice per week starting in September.  Each team meeting lasts about one or two hours. There may be additional offline, hands-on individual work time depending on the innovation project that a team comes up with.

Teams may increase meetings and/or individual work time as qualifier tournaments approach.

How can parents be involved? What are some of the different roles?

• Team Coach (need at least 2 per team)
• Volunteer to offer space
• Volunteer at the Regional or State Tournament
• Snack Parent

Policies

Updated: August 27, 2025

ELIGIBILITY: Our afterschool programs /clubs (including FLL) are ONLY for CURRENT-ENROLLED Medina students with ACTIVE Medina PTA membership. Your child must be enrolled with Medina Elementary school at the time they are attending the Destination Imagination and you must have a valid Medina PTA family or individual membership for the 2025-2026 school year. You agree that if your kid is not currently enrolled with Medina Elementary school OR you do not purchase PTA membership, your child will be withdrawn from FLL with no refund.

FEES: For a student to participate in any after-school club, there cannot be an outstanding balance on the family's PTA's account. Tuition and all outstanding fees must be paid in full by October 7th, 2025. If you do not pay all fees by this deadline, your child will be withdrawn from FLL and a 5% tuition processing fee will be added to your account. 

To remain enrolled in FLL, families must timely pay any Medina PTA fees (not just club fees) incurred during the course of the school year. You understand that failure to pay fees on time may result in your student being withdrawn from the club with no refund.

PROCESSING FEE: Any student registration for an afterschool club that you cancel will incur a 5% processing fee. This includes cancelling a duplicate registration (e.g., when the parents sign up the same child twice for the same club) or cancelling one registration to sign up for a different Medina PTA club on the same day. The 5% fee applies for all transaction types (credit card, cash, or check).

REFUNDS: If a student withdraws from a team before the team meetings start, a 5% tuition processing fee applies to the refund. If a student requests a refund within the first month, half of the tuition fee may be refunded. There is no refund after the first month.

BEHAVIOR: 

Intentional violent behavior directed at another individual during the club (including another student, teacher, coach/instructor, parent, or volunteer) and resulting in physical harm is grounds for immediate removal from that club without refund. Medina PTA retains the discretion to remove this student from all other enrolled afterschool clubs/programs and prevent this student from registering for future afterschool programs in the same school year.

Parents and students are expected to behave respectfully to each other and the coaches/instructors: 

• If the club chair determines that a student’s behavior is disruptive during the program/club, or the student is consistently disrespectful, a warning will be issued to the student and parent. After the warning, a second offense will result in removal of the student from the club with no refund, unless the club chair decides to issue a second warning. The chair my also require the parent to provide full-time adult supervision of the student for the duration of the club. The adult supervisor must be a PTA member and have a BSD background check. A third offense will result in removal of the student from the club program with no refund. 
• If the club chair determines that a parent’s behavior is disruptive or consistently disrespectful, a warning will be issued to the parent. After the warning, a second offense will result in removal of that parent’s child from afterschool clubs with no refund. 
• At the discretion of Medina PTA, any withdrawal due to disruptive or disrespectful behavior may also affect the family’s ability to register for future afterschool programs.

Recap