FIRST LEGO League encourages each team to come with small giveaways they can present to other teams and visitors at tournaments. These are called tchotchkes and are commonly handed out in business conventions, tradeshows and exhibitions to promote companies and their products. The word tchotchkes derives from the slavic word for trinket.
Examples of tech tradeshow tchotchkes
In the context of FLL the idea is to not only promote your team and research project but to also provide a physical connection between teams. In addition, it gives FLL teams another way to think about connecting with others and provides an excuse to have kids work the floor and go out to meet other kids and learn about their projects.
When we thought about this years theme “Trash Trek” it seemed to go against the idea of “tchotchkes”. Most tchotchkes are low-value throw-away gifts of poor quality that only add to our trash problem.
Beckett came up with the idea of a drawing of a single higher value gift rather than many low-value disposable tchotchkes. We thought about which kind of gift would fit this years theme so we searched etsy.com and ebay for upcycled and repurposed gifts and came across the idea drawing prize:
Our Upcycled Raffle Prize for this year’s tournaments
Another problem we had last year was that most teams just handed out tchotchkes without taking advantage of the exchange. This year, we thought we’d advertise our drawing giveaway on our business cards. People could either scan our QR code or go directly to the printed URL and enter the drawing by completing a simple ecoQuiz.
Our Team Cards for this year’s Trash Trek Theme
This would not only raise awareness of for our Research Project, but would also educate people on some of the key issues:
- Common misconceptions about what is best for the environment
- How these misconceptions can actually hurt the environment
- Introduce a science and fact-based way to act smarter for the environment
- Show them how ecoSmart.xyz fulfilled a unique and needed role
- Introduce them in how to use ecoSmart.xyz to make smarter decisions to save the environment
Gambier Giga Flops 