FLL Team Resources
A collection of resources for our FIRST LEGO League teams — starter robot designs, building and programming tutorials, and season resources for the BIOGLOW challenge.
🌿 New to the season?
Start with the official BIOGLOW Season Resources from FIRST — the challenge rulebook, mission building instructions, rubrics, and awards list all live there.
Starter Robot Designs
A solid base robot with a modular attachment system makes everything else easier — pick one, build it, then design your own attachments for it.
Our Designs
Two SPIKE Prime base robots we designed and built for our own teams. Both are free to download and open in BrickLink Studio, where you can rotate the model, pull it apart, and step through how it goes together.
Marcus Bot
A very compact robot base, achieved by having the attachment motors partially cover the hub.
Chair Bot
A robot with the hub and drive motors mounted vertically — hence the name "Chair Bot".
FLL Tutorials Designs
FLL Tutorials publishes free building instructions for competition-ready base robots. Click any robot below for its building instructions.
Coop Bot
A modular base robot aimed at more experienced teams. It uses color sensors as touch sensors, so it takes careful wire management.
DroidBot M (SPIKE Prime)
A modular base robot with a well-developed attachment system, and a good all-round starting point.
DroidBot E
A sturdy base robot built inside a full beam frame, which makes attachment mounting points easy to find.
Robot images and building instructions by FLL Tutorials, used under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Robot Design & Building
- FLL Tutorials — Robot Game — The full hub: navigation and alignment tutorials, gearing, wheels, cable management, sensor placement, passive attachments, and robot design judging tips.
- FIRST LEGO League Technical Resources — Official technical resources for the challenge.
- Yoshihito Isogawa’s YouTube Channel — SPIKE Prime building ideas from the author of the LEGO Technic idea books.
- Builderdude Robotics Tutorials — Tutorials from Builderdude, a former FIRST LEGO League team.
- Mr. Hino’s LEGO Robotics YouTube Channel — A variety of videos for FIRST LEGO League teams.
- Droid Robotics YouTube Channel — Video tutorials for FIRST LEGO League teams.
Robotics Rules Videos
Robotics Rules publishes short, focused video tutorials for FLL Challenge teams, aimed especially at rookie and novice teams. Everything below is on their YouTube channel.
StarterBot
Their own base robot design, aimed squarely at rookie and novice teams, with free building instructions for the robot and a set of attachments.
- StarterBot — The AWESOME robot system for all novice and rookie FLL teams (12:22) — Why the design works and how the attachment system fits together.
- StarterBot for Rookie and Novice FLL Teams — Live Build (5:54) — A start-to-finish build.
- FLL StarterBot UPDATE (3:39) — Revisions to the design.
- Building instructions and attachment designs — Free downloads for the StarterBot and eight attachments.
Building
- Center of Gravity — The Key To Building an Effective FLL Robot (10:43) — How center of gravity determines whether your robot tips or drives cleanly.
- Secure your FLL Robot to the Mission Structure Using a MASHER (4:52) — Locking the robot onto a mission model so the mission actually completes.
- AWESOME One-Way Door Designs for your FLL Robot (6:48) — Passive designs for capturing mission elements.
- Who Needs Motors? Passive Attachment Designs for FLL (8:16) — Turning a single button press into useful motion without an attachment motor.
Their channel also has coding tutorials, but those use the SPIKE Prime app rather than Pybricks — see Programming below for what our teams use.
Programming
- M.A.R.C.U.S. — Our own open-source SPIKE Prime menu framework for selecting and running mission programs during competition. Both of our FLL teams used it during the Unearthed season.
- Pybricks — The Python firmware our teams use with M.A.R.C.U.S. You can build programs with Pybricks block programming and convert them to Python, or write Python directly.
BIOGLOW Season Resources
The BIOGLOW season is about rainforests and biodiversity.
Season Videos
Start here — the missions video walks through every mission on the board, and the field setup video shows how to build and place the mission models.
- BIOGLOW Robot Game Missions Video (9:26) — Every mission on the board, explained.
- BIOGLOW Field Setup — How to build and position the mission models.
- Introducing the 2026–2027 BIOGLOW Season (1:12) — The season reveal.
- Welcome to the BIOGLOW Season — Season introduction.
The rest of this section comes from the official BIOGLOW Challenge Multimedia Resources guide.
Rainforests & Biodiversity — Videos
- Explore the Rainforest! Ecology for Kids (4:07) — SciShow Kids introduces rainforest ecosystems and habitats.
- Inside the Enchanted Forests — Full Episode (43:11) — National Geographic Kids, with real rainforest footage and animal facts.
- Virtual Field Trip to the Amazon (16:26) — World Wildlife Fund Wild Classroom.
- What is Biodiversity? (7:31) — Next Generation Science.
Rainforests & Biodiversity — Web
- Rainforest Facts: The Ultimate Guide to Rainforests — Active Wild’s guide to rainforests and why they are so important.
- National Geographic Kids: Rainforest Habitat — Habitats and animal profiles, with videos, quizzes, and wildlife news.
- Biodiversity Vocabulary Words — Words and definitions associated with biodiversity (PDF).
Animals of the Rainforest
- San Diego Zoo Wildlife Explorers — Live animal cams, animal stories, and facts.
- National Wildlife Federation — Kids & Family — Animal facts, wildlife habitats, and conservation activities.
Jobs and Tools
- Wildlife Biologist — Career Spotlight (3:10) — A short USAGov video on working as a wildlife biologist.
- Biologists! Scientists Who Love Life! (3:47) — SciShow.
- Guardians of the Rainforest: Meet the Mighty Protectors (3:00) — An introduction to rainforest conservation and why the Amazon has such incredible biodiversity.
- TREE Foundation Forest Resources — Books and information about canopy scientist Margaret Lowman and how she studies rainforest treetops.
- How Scientists are Uncovering the Secrets of Life in the Rainforest Canopy — Smithsonian Magazine, National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.
Innovation Project
Our past innovation projects: COCOPlus Hydration Packets and The Protection Backpack.
Videos
- How to Pick a Project Topic and Conduct Research (40:10) — Droid Robotics Share & Learn webinar.
- Essential Google Search Tricks for Research (6:42) — Common Sense Media.
- Reading More Than One Source on a Topic (3:15) — Khan Academy.
- How to Evaluate Sources for Reliability (3:48) — Teaching without Frills.
- How To Create Surveys (20:25) — Droid Robotics.
- Create and Iterate Your Prototype (13:46) — The Moment Makers, a former FIRST LEGO League team.
- Presentation Skills — Part 1 (1:44) and Part 2 (1:31), from Green Ivy Schools.
Web
- Innovation Project Prep Activities — Droid Robotics’ walkthrough of the entire research project process.
- USPTO Resources for Kids, Parents, and Teachers — United States Patent and Trademark Office.
- Expanding Students’ Ideas About How to Give Presentations — Edutopia.
- How to Help Students Develop Interviewing Skills — Edutopia.
- How to Skype with an Expert in Your Classroom — Class Tech Tips.
- There’s Got to be a Better Way: Developing a Product — Fun Kids, a UK children’s radio station.
Engineering Design Process
- What is Computational Thinking? — Teach Your Kids Code.
- The Engineering Process: Crash Course Kids #12.2 (5:16) — Explains the engineering design process to students.
- Engineering Design Process Curriculum — Lessons from TeachEngineering.org.
- Design Thinking Resources for Educators — Innovation Training.
- Design Thinking: A Problem Solving Framework (5:22) — Edutopia.
- Drawing Designs in Detail — A hands-on activity plan.