The Project

Each and every day, transportation touches your lives. Your team travels to the places where they learn, to the places where they play, to visit friends and family. Things we want, clothes we wear, the food we eat, the water we drink, medicines we need—all these travel over highways, on paths and trails, along railroad tracks, up and down rivers, across oceans, over mountains and deserts, along the streets we live on. Information travels to us from experts, teachers, friends, and family. It comes to us by word-of-mouth, over the phone, in books, from websites, in text messages.

Now, consider. A potato chip can travel through a factory—flying from machine-to-machine without being broken—but more than 50,000 kids who traveled on skateboards had to be taken to the hospital. Is all this travel as safe as it could be? Millions of people (and the things they need) get stuck in transit every day. Is all this travel as efficient as it could be?

Your challenge this season is to look at your community and discover how people, animals, information, and things travel. Once you know how people and things move in your community, pick one main mode of transportation and do some research. What kinds of problems keep people and things from getting where they are going safely? What kind of problems keep people and things from moving efficiently, getting where they are going quickly and using the least amount of energy? How could your team help solve one of those problems?

Identify a Problem

Begin your project by describing your community. This season, it is up to your team to define your community. Is it your school? your neighborhood? your city, village, or town? your country? the world? Be prepared to share how you defined your community.

Next, create a list of the ways that people, animals, information, and things move in, around, to, and through your community. Be creative. Be silly. Be serious. Think about everything that gets moved, including yourselves!

Once your list is complete, pick one way that people and things move in your community and learn more about it!

Whether your team chooses planes, boats, trains, cars, trucks, skateboards, rollerblades, bicycles, donkeys, llamas, camels, your feet…it’s time to research. What makes your mode of transportation dangerous? What prevents people, information, animals, and things from getting where they need to go? What makes them take longer? What makes them burn more fuel? Search out the problems. Look at reports. Read books. Browse websites. Conduct a survey. Check with experts who work in and around your community. Use any research tools you have available. Be prepared to share your information sources.

Create an Innovative Solution

Choose one of the problems and suggest a solution. What can be done to fix the problem? What will it take to make your team’s solution happen? How will your solution help your community? How can your team make moving from one place to another safer and easier? A great solution might take all the imagination and ingenuity your team can muster. It might seem so obvious that you wonder why the problem even exists. And remember, the most important thing is to have fun while you make a Smart Move.

Share with your Community

Now, tell your community about the problem you researched, and how your solution can help. You choose how to share what you’ve learned. Give a talk for parents. Create a website. Perform a skit. Make a comic book. Rap. Create a poster. Pass out flyers. Write a poem, song, or story. Present your research and solution to lawmakers.

 Your presentation to the judges can be simple or elaborate, serious or designed to make people laugh while they learn—but to be eligible for project awards at tournaments, it must:

• Describe your community, the problem, and your team’s solution
• Show that your team did the research and tell about your information sources
• Be shared with someone outside of your team

Note:  The total length of your project presentation at a tournament or qualifier should be no more than five minutes, including any setup time.

Need Help Getting Started?

The 2009 Smart Move FLL Coaches' Handbook contains more information about FIRST LEGO® League, the Smart Move Challenge, tournaments, awards, and scoring. Be sure to look at the project rubric.

Information and resources are also available online.

• At www.firstlegoleague.org you will find general information as well as the 2009 Topic Guide and links to information sources that can help your team start your research.
  

If you have more questions, email fllprojects@usfirst.org for project support or flltech@usfirst.org for game support.