TSPE First
Lego League
FIRST® (For
Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) endeavors to get students in grades 4-8 excited about math and
science through
the FIRST® Lego League (FLL)
program. This year's theme was "Food Factor," which covered food
safety. Teams spent 8 weeks researching
an invention
they would like to build to
make food safer, developed a presentation of their invention, and programmed a
Lego® Mindstorm® robot to accomplish as
many food related missions as
possible on a 4' x 8' game field in two minutes and thirty seconds. Each mission carried a different point value.
Teams were
credited with the best point score
of three attempts.
The Memphis Chapter of the Tennessee Society of Professional Engineers has just finished our first year actively supporting the
program in Memphis with
great success! Last year, there were zero FLL teams in the Memphis
area. This year, nine teams registered
with FIRST, purchased robot kits, and
implemented robotics learning
programs.
Under the
coordination of John Ventura, Christian Brothers
University hosted the "Mid Season Summit"
October 29th, where FLL teams were given the
opportunity to learn a
line following program and share with other FLL teams. The event was also open to the public and CBU
provided computers and
robots for students not
affiliated with FLL allowing them to write a program and experience the robot
operating under their
control.
Pictured are the St. Francis Elementary team (white T-Shirts),
Cordova Elementary team (Green T-Shirts), and the Ira Samelson
Boys and Girls Club (Orange T-Shirts)
The University of Memphis provided the
University Center Ballroom and additional judging rooms for the Memphis
community event on December 3, 2011.
Six of the
nine registered teams came together to compete in the robot games, present
their invention, and exhibit core values.
Core values are the guiding
FLL principles which promote teamwork and self learning. Tim Herndon judged teams
on their understanding of core values. J.T. Malasri judged team presentations.
Frank
Niedzwiedz organized the event with the university. Four awards were given out - Grand Champion,
Core Values, Project Presentation, and Robot Design.
Following
FIRST's core values of Gracious Professionalism™ and Coopertition™,
two teams who were having difficulty getting their robot to run were paired
with
University of Memphis students familiar with the NXT programming
language. By the end of the day, both teams
successfully ran missions on the game table.
It was
empowering for students to start the day with a dead robot and end with
successful missions!
One
Memphis-registered team even made the four hour and thirty minute trek to
Cookeville, Tennessee, to participate in the Tennessee State Championship on
December 10th. In Cookeville, approximately 50 teams from
Tennessee competed in the robot games, presented their invention idea, and
exhibited core values.
The Memphis
School of Excellence team took third place in Robot
Mechanical Design.
With the
excitement generated by this year's event in Memphis and the community support
we were able to garner, the Memphis TSPE Chapter is planning for
even more teams next year!