OUR HISTORY
The Moovers first got our start in 2009 when Motorola Solutions Foundation gave the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago & Northwest Indiana funding to start ten all-girl FLL teams. The hope was to foster interest in girls in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Typically, these areas are dominated by men. This trend was definitely seen in the FLL program where 80-85% of FLL participants were boys. By partnering, both Girl Scouts and Motorola hoped to expose young women to hands on engineering principles through FLL.
Girl Scouts then sent out an email to leaders in the area explaining the program and asking for participants. Our leader, and soon to be coach, thought it sounded like something "different" and decided to give it a try. Out of a troop of 28 girls, nine of us expressed an interest in doing the program . . . and the rest is history!
Our name originated from that year's Challenge theme, "Smart Moves," which dealt with issues in transportation. We thought we would do something like moving cows . . . hence "The Moovers." Not sure why we thought of that topic, but hey, for 8-9 year old little girls it made sense . . . and the name has stuck ever since!! Our team theme has been . . . "Girls Just Wanna Have fun!!"
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"SMART MOVES" 2009-10 - Our first year . . .
Our first year was quite overwhelming! Many of us had never even played with Legos, let alone programmed, dealt with motors, wheel rotations, etc. Needless to say, what we lacked in technical knowledge, we made up for in spirit and enthusiasm!! For a group of eight 8-9 year old girls, we did quite well at our regional competition . . . Moover's cheers & chants were heard throughout the day. Our team won the Rookie Team Award and also took home the 1st place trophy for Research Project . . . which had nothing to do with moving cows :) Not bad for a group of feisty little girls to take home two of the six trophies awarded!!
Note: Because we did not score in the top 50% in missions, sadly we didn't advance to the state competition.
Note: Because we did not score in the top 50% in missions, sadly we didn't advance to the state competition.
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"BODY FORWARD" 2010-11 Our second year . . .
Our second year was a year of change for the team . . . a teammate moved, a few had to leave the team due to other commitments and we picked up some new girls. We were now a veteran team of ten girls and after our performance the previous year, our expectations were high! We didn't do as well as we had hoped at our regional competition, hence we did not move onto state, but we still had a ton of fun!! Remember . . . "Girls just wanna have fun!"
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"FOOD FACTOR" 2011-12 - Our third year . . .
Our third season started out similar to our previous year . . . some girls leaving and new girls joining! We knew we had to work extra hard this year to catch the new girls up, but with hard work comes opportunities . . . and holy cow . . . did we have some amazing opportunities!!! We made it to the state competition where we took home the 1st place Champions Award! We then went to Florida to compete and we were invited to represent the USA in Germany!! Our third year was AMAZING!! It was a ton of hard work, but look at the opportunities it afforded us??!! Memories for a lifetime!!!!!!
Click HERE to see photos of our competitions at state, Florida and Germany.
Click HERE to see photos of our competitions at state, Florida and Germany.
Illinois State Championship Tournament - January 17-18, 2012
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"SENIOR SOLUTIONS" 2012-13 - Our fourth year . . .
After our whirlwind season last year, how would we ever top that? We came into our fourth season with the goal of repeating last year . . . a very hefty goal!! But we didn't repeat it . . . we EXCEEDED it!!! We won the 1st place Ambassadors Award! This season was probably our hardest year yet because our team truly embraced the Core Value of "sharing our experience with others." In addition to doing the regular work associated with an FLL season, we also participated in a lot of outside activities to share with others what we have learned through FLL Robotics, how much fun it can be, and that using science, technology, engineering and math can be pretty cool!
Click HERE to see how we "Shared our Experience."
Click HERE to see how we "Shared our Experience."
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"NATURE'S FURY" 2013-14 - Our fifth & final year . . .
Well, this year in FLL Robotics has been truly amazing!!! Our team slimmed down a bit, but the core girls that were dedicated to the team "mooved" ahead to our final season (we age out). We approached the year with enthusiasm and confidence . . . after all, some of us are 5 year veterans! But every year is different and affords different challenges . . . this year's was how to stay focused and fresh! And that's exactly what we did . . . we focused, in between the fun, on what needed to get done . . . and did some really "fresh" things like going to an awesome kick-off event at the MSI, visited the underground tunnels at FermiLab and met Bill Nye, The Science Guy!! Pretty new & cool stuff!!