This year, Christopher's
school
formed a team to participate in the First Lego League
Tournaments.
It
is an activity where young school-aged children learn to solve problems
with a robotic kit composed of Legos, sensors and a Lego motion control
computer. These are programmed on a PC, and the program is
downloaded into the motion controller.
Overall shot of the task board. The robot must be started in
the
nearby
rectangle, and needs to complete as many of the 16 missions as possible.
This year's mission theme was environmental and global climate.
At a preliminary scrimmage, we were able to obtain valuable competition
experience.
This is a video of Christopher's mission and robot.
The solving of problems
with Legos
and the environmental project that they completed (rain barrels solve
runoff problems) was a tremendous learning experience. On Jan
31
2009, they went to the State Finals. There were 82 teams
there
from all over the state. It is rare that a rookie team such
as
ours does well, but we were able to win one of the 15 trophies awarded.
Here is the entire team posing with the trophy.
The team appeared in local paper "Bowie Blade"
We thank the DeBurgos for their weekly hospitality and their coaching
of the team.