By Jumana Omar
ITKAN has hosted summer training camps for its FRC and FTC teams before, but this summer, the organization expanded that tradition to its youngest competitors. Saturday marked the first day of ITKAN's inaugural FLL Summer Training Program, and it was a milestone worth celebrating. The energy in the room made clear that students weren't just showing up, they were ready to compete.
The session opened with an orientation to how FIRST LEGO League works. For many of the students, this was their first structured look at what FLL competition actually involves. Coaches walked them through the three pillars that define every FLL season: the Robot Game, the Innovation Project, and Core Values judging. Understanding how all three components connect, and how judges evaluate each one, is the kind of foundational knowledge that separates teams who show up from teams who genuinely compete.
To make it tangible, mentors showed examples from last season. Seeing real robots, real innovation projects, and real presentations gave students a concrete picture of what a finished season looks like. It set the bar early and gave them something to aim for.
Getting Their Hands Dirty
Theory only goes so far, and ITKAN's approach has always been rooted in doing. By mid-session, the kits were out and the teams were building.
Students split into small groups and got to work assembling functional robots using SPIKE Prime LEGO sets. The process of putting a robot together from scratch, figuring out how each component connects, how the structure holds up, how small design choices ripple into real-world performance, is something that can't be taught through a slide deck. Mentors circulated throughout the room, offering guidance without taking over, letting students work through problems and arrive at solutions themselves.
Once the robots were built, the teams moved into programming. Using block-based code, students gave their robots instructions: move in a specific direction, travel a set distance, stop at a precise point. It sounds straightforward, but anyone who has worked in robotics knows that getting a machine to behave exactly as intended is a genuine challenge. There were plenty of moments of trial and error, robots going the wrong way, overshooting their marks, stopping too soon, and those moments were just as valuable as the ones where everything worked perfectly. When a team finally got their robot to execute a clean run, the reaction said everything.
Thinking Like Innovators
With the build and programming session wrapped up, the focus shifted to the part of FLL that demands a different kind of thinking entirely: the Innovation Project.
Coaches broke down how FLL judging works in detail, what the panel is looking for, how presentations are evaluated, and what distinguishes a project that checks the boxes from one that genuinely impresses. Students learned that FLL isn't just about what your robot can do on a field. It's about identifying a real-world problem, developing a creative and researched solution, and communicating that solution clearly and confidently to a panel of judges. That combination of technical and communication skills is exactly what ITKAN aims to develop.
From there, coaches introduced last season's challenge theme. The room came alive with questions and ideas almost immediately. Students started bouncing concepts off each other, debating approaches, and thinking through how they would frame their projects. By the end of the session, teams had begun designing their posters, early, rough sketches of how they would present their innovation work to judges when the season arrives.
A Strong Start
For a first day of a brand-new program, Saturday covered an enormous amount of ground. Students walked in with little more than curiosity and walked out with a working robot, a taste of programming, and the beginning of a competition strategy. That's not a small thing.
The weeks ahead will bring harder challenges, tighter deadlines, and higher expectations. But if the first day of ITKAN's FLL Summer Training is any indication, these students are more than ready for what's coming.