Click HERE to ask us any question for an email response. What is FHRL - Forest Hills Robotics League? Forest Hills Robotics League is a non-profit organization dedicated in promoting STEM education through robotics activity and competitions. We follow the format of sports team leagues, where teams are formed and led by volunteer coaches, who are typically parents of some members on the team. Do you offer Robotics "Classes" ? We now offer spring robotics workshops for our non-competition members. Workshops will be led by veteran coaches that have years of experience in teaching different robotic systems. For Competition teams, we do NOT offer classes. We form robotics teams that are led by our volunteer coaches. Coaches along with the parents will teach and guide the children through hands-on robotics activities. The older teams will be participating in Robotics competitions. We offer training and support for our parent volunteer coaches. What do you offer then? We are a non-profit community volunteer based collaborative league. We offer learning workshop for non-competition members. We also form FIRST competition teams: Our league forms and supports Robotics teams that are coached by wonderful parents like yourself. Our coaches are volunteers coaches very much like the little league baseball coaches! Our coaches work along with all the parents on the team to guide the team in discovering and exploring Robotics through hands-on learning. Each child is required to be accompanied by an adult guardian at each session. We expect all parents to help and pitch in with the team and the team coaches! It truly takes a village to make the program a success! What steps are you taking with regards to COVID concerns? Starting March 2022, we no longer require full vaccination. We continue to require all in-person members, accompanying adults and coaching staff to wear a Face masks when the kids are meeting indoors. Hand sanitizers will be available to all team members during the meetings. How long is your season? How many sessions do they meet for? Our season begins in Sept/Oct for FLL and FTC teams, and runs for different length depending on the different league of the age group. Our JFLL teams meet Fall (Oct - Dec) or Spring (Mar-April)
What day and time does the team meet? for how long? All our teams meet once a week on Saturday at PS144, Visit our schedule page for detailed meeting time for each team.
What is the cost?
How do I pay? No payment is required until you are offered and accepted a spot on a team. All payments will be done online via paypal. What do you do at Team Meetings? Our Teams will develop their skills in critical thinking, problem solving, public speaking and presentation skills in a collaborative environments working on hands-on projects. Our emphasis is on personal creativity and discovery, there are no right or wrong answers, the kids will explore, discover and learn as they work with their teammates and collaboratively create a fun solution to their challenge problems. Depending on which league your child is in, the teams will be exploring different robotics topics and missions and creating robot and projects based on the challenge of the season. Junior teams will conclude their season with a exposition to showcase their model and research work. FLL and FTC teams will participate in local, regional and possibly World FIRST competitions. NON-COMPETITION TEAMS
What are all these acronyms FIRST, JFLL, FLL, FTC mean? FIRST is the organization that runs the FIRST Robotics Competitions. We support teams participating in the FIRST program and tournaments. Depending on the age of a child, there are different leagues for each age group. Visit our JFLL/FLL/FTC page for more details about each league. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology
Do I need to live in Forest Hills or go to PS144 to join? No, we are open to anyone who is interested in joining. Though majority of our members are from Queens, we have members coming from all different places like Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, Westchester and even New Jersey. My child is X years old, is he/she old enough to join your club? As long as your child is between the age of 6 and 18 (as of Dec 31), we should have something for his/her age group:
When do I register for a team? Registration will start early June after our open house. See our Registration page for more details. Who are the coaches? All of our coaches are volunteers. Each team usually has a minimum of two coaches. One Research Coach and one Robotics Coach. Our coaches are screened and selected by our Directors, they also go through coach training before the season starts. If you volunteer and are selected as a coach, your child will be guaranteed a spot on the team. Visit our Coach page for more details. Do Parents need to be there at the meetings? YES, this is an active parent participation program. At least one adult family member is required to be present at all meetings. The more involved you are with the program, the more your child will get out of the program. This is a great way to spend quality time with your child doing fun and educational activities together! Will my child get a spot on the team? The
good news is we have a high retention rate among our members (our
members love us and never want to leave the club). The bad news is we don't have
too many open spot to take on a lot of new members, so sometimes the waiting list could be long. However, if you volunteer and are selected as a coach, your child will be automatically accepted onto your team. Visit our Coach page for more details about volunteering as a coach. Can I bring my child's younger sibling to the meetings? No. This is your child's special time for him or her. Having a younger sibling there will be a distraction for your child. I don't know anything about robots, how can I help with my child's team? The teams will be working on a research project as well as designing, building and programming on robots. Parents can help guide the children in many aspects of the team activities, from finding a robot part, to making a costume and rehearsing a play. Our coaches appreciate getting all the help and assistance they can get from Parents and mentors.
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