36 FIRST LEGO League Teams (ages 10-14) came together November 12th to compete in the E3 Robotics Center Qualifying tournament at Elkhart Memorial High School. And 16 FIRST LEGO League Jr Team (ages 6-10) came to present at the local expo as well. FIRST LEGO League, and FIRST LEGO League Jr are a part of FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. FIRST is trying to help inspire kids grades K-12 to love science and technology and seek jobs in these high paying fields of work. |
For those FIRST LEGO League Teams they also focus on a Robot Game. With teams competing on a 4'x8' board with the "Animal Allies" them. Some of the challenges teams had to design and program their robot for was to transport a Bee on to a Bee Hive, Move a Dog Trainer and Animal Vet to marked areas on the board. Collect food and feed animals around the board, and if possible try to hang their robot on a wall with a gecko! |
The Teams got to run their robots on the table for two 2 1/2 min rounds in which they would try to score as many points with their robot as they could. Robots had to be pre-programmed and would run based off of their programs downloaded into them. Teams also presented to 3 sets of judges in the following areas. Robot Design, where teams presented about their building and programming of their robot. Core Values, in which they talk about how they work as a team and respect each other. |
And Project Presentation where they had to come up with a problem animals face and create an innovative solution to the problem they found. Teams then could win awards for those judged areas and their robot performance. The top overall teams in the judged areas and robot performance then got to advance to the State Championship. |