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Team Member awards
The following discussion is quoted from the Facebook Group FLL: Share & Learn .
Do you give out individual awards to team members after the season is over? What awards do you give out? Team spirit? Ingenuity? Rising Star?
Some teams give out individual awards at the the end of the season. This might be to recognized the students’ contributions or because the team only receives one trophy. Below are such suggestions for creating your own trophies/recognizing team members.
Make a trophy
Create your own trophy and add a custom sticker.
Response by Michael Simons
Custom Certificates for each student
Response by Layne Kirk
I custom make certificates each year. The certificate includes: the team photo with names underneath, photos and descriptions of trophies (if any), season logo, FLL logo, and a custom picture of a minifigure that looks like the recipient (with his/her name underneath). I’ll include a photo of them in costume with props from their presentation, too, if that applies. It’s more of a keepsake (photo collage) for memory’s sake.
Response by Angelica G. Salazar
We usually have a little award ceremony, and each member receives an award for something they did during the tournament that was above and beyond the expected. I can easily find something for each child. They also get one of those blind mini figures packs. And we eat ice cream Sundays while we read our rubric results.
I think is nice to be recognized as a team member who supports and helps the team. Specially for those kids who feel they are the lazy ones and aren’t as good as the rest of the team. Or for those who have been pushed out of their comfort zone.
That child whose mission only worked once or maybe not at all during the tournament, even though it worked most of the time during practice, might already be feeling like they don’t offer much support to the team, but maybe that child never lost their enthusiasm, and kept a good spirit and handled the pressure like a champ. I think that deserves some recognition. Or that very shy child that finds strength and their voice during project presentation.
It is not about getting a prize at the end, is about finding out that you helped the team, in ways that you didn’t even think you were helping. After all the award is just a piece of paper. But I think it improves team morale, specially when things don’t go as planned.
So far I have been able to find something good for everyone on the team. During the season I encourage the lazy one to find something they are passionate about. No child joins a team thinking they are going to freeload an experience. There is a motivation there, you just have to find it. Sometimes that lazy kid might be an intimidated child or a bored child in need of something. I had a reluctant programmer, turned out that child was just worried about not being able to do a good job.
Response by Ruth Ann Francis
After each tournament, we have ice cream with various toppings while we go over the rubrics and make plans for what’s next. If that’s the next tournament, we talk about what where we want to improve and how we’re going to do that. If our competition season is done I explain what I’m thinking for how we will spend the remaining meetings of the year (we continue to meet for about 90 minutes weekly through the end of April), hear what the kids want to do and we figure out how best to spend the remaining time.
Response by Jennifer Langston Saylor
Google Brick Engravers. I came up with a unique award for each kid. I will do it again too.
Response by Fll Telgenborch
Nope, it has been a team effort. We do celebrate though. We eat cake, laugh and party as a team and celebrate the awesome season we had together. Throughout the season we compliment eachother, every teammember tells another what their talent is and how they contributed to the team.
Response by Ryan Evans
Why does everything have to result in a material item or some kind of personal reward? The whole point of FLL is the team effort - the experience.
I think you’ll find tokens are appreciated but totally and wholly unnecessary. My kids are stoked to simply keep their t-shirts that they helped make… And they’re still on cloud 9. Even the two teams that didn’t win an award.
Value the journey - not the prize at the end.
Response by Dari Quirk
At the end of the season - I always give each team member the official FLL certificate provided on the website each season - here is the link for this year:
Response by Michael Graffin
I give out Spirit of FLL awards recognising students’ who have gone above and beyond in their demonstration of core values during the season. It is a personal thing.
Response by Annie Drennan
I’m sure that what works for your team will be as individual as the kids that make up the team, but one thing that my kids really liked that we did a few years ago was when we made the mission models into trophies. We haven’t done that the last couple of years (it doesn’t work for all situations), but we gave each team member a trophy created from the mission model they had worked on the most from the robot game. Three of the team members were my children and I have to say, that even years later, they still look at those trophies far more than any other participation type trophies they’ve received because it reflected their own work and as I collected the trophies from their rooms to give you an example, I couldn’t help but go down memory road about what they named an attachment or how they overcame a major challenge. I know the robot game isn’t nearly all that FLL is all about, but it certainly is the most visible part at competitions and often the most time consuming and frustrating (& hopefully rewarding) for team members.
Response by Asha Seshan
Not as creative as other ideas, but this one is from way back…I had plaques made for each member (and the team’s senior citizen partner). Cost me $5 or so each. It was my gift to the kids. I had them made before the championship so I had no idea what they would or would not win. They were all winners to me and so I actually gave them out before the Championships that year.
Our third season, I gave out patches for skills learned during the season (having bright ideas, learning from mistakes, teamwork, etc). At the end of the season, each kid got a large FLL patch to add to the collection.
Response by Joanne Sterk
We make certificates of participation. Then we also recognize individual efforts like helping others program, graciousness, parent volunteers, etc at a potluck style gathering.
Response by Rod Collins
After our qualifier, we reviewed how we did. Spontaneously, the kids started complimenting each other for what went on in the event and then broke out laughing as they all gave out nicknames for each other. They loved it so much, they are adding the nicknames across the back of the team shirts for state.
Response by Catherine Sarisky I sourced parts for brick-built rhinos (since my team is the Robotic Rhinos) and we built them as a fun activity after the qualifier. I contemplated pedestals, but decided against it.
There are also lots of cute opportunities here: http://www.brickengraver.com/ (Not affiliated and haven’t ordered - just looked cute!)
Response by Korey Atterberry
I can’t find the plans just yet, but last year I made a tiny one out of bricks. It cost about $5 each for parts from bricklink. We won a team trophy, but since they don’t all get to have it I wanted them to have a little something for themselves.
