On Saturday, December 10th, 15 FIRST Lego League (FLL) Robotics teams from will gather at West Ferris Secondary School to compete for bragging rights and a chance to participate at the East Provincial FIRST LEGO LEAGUE Challenge Championship in January.
The 8th Annual North Bay FIRST LEGO League Challenge Qualifying Tournament is sponsored by FIRST Team 1305 and many 1305 students have been spending the last three months mentoring the FLL students and their teams.
More than 200 kids (aged 9 to 14) and over 50 student, parent and teacher mentors, will be descending on West Ferris on December 10th. This year, some teams will travel from Burks Falls, Callander and Sudbury to participate.
The theme of this year’s FLL challenge is ‘SuperPowered”. Area FIRST LEGO League Challenge teams, composed of up to 10 students are tasked with building a robot out of LEGO and LEGO Mindstorms that autonomously runs ‘missions’ on a competition table. As part of the process, Teams also learn more about some of the challenges in our community and how we can improve it.
Teams also create a project and presentation to show a problem that showcases a problem (centered on the SuperPowered theme) and their proposed solution. A panel of judges rates the team on numerous criteria and provides members with feedback.
In addition to building a robot and completing a project, teams must learn and portray FIRST Core Values:
- Discovery: We explore new skills and ideas.
- Innovation: We use creativity and persistence to solve problems.
- Impact: We apply what we learn to improve our world.
- Inclusion: We respect each other and embrace our differences.
- Teamwork: We are stronger when we work together.
- Fun: We enjoy and celebrate what we do!
The competition is FREE and all members of the public are welcome to join in the day. Opening ceremonies take place at 8:15am, followed by a full day of table-top robotics matches and project presentations and judging. Best spectator times are from 1:00-3:30 Awards should be complete by 4:30.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okR1AMFNV3Q
