WHAT: Creativity and science come together at this weekend’s FIRST® LEGO® League Championship Tournament at the University of Rochester. The competition brings the top 36 teams, selected from a regional pool of over 130 teams to compete. Teams will demonstrate their problem-solving skills, creative thinking, teamwork, competitive play, sportsmanship, and sense of community.
This year’s “WORLD CLASS” Challenge calls for teams—made up of 9 to16 year olds—to research and present their own creative solutions to one of today’s most relevant topics: technology in education. Teams will redesign how we gather knowledge and skills in the 21st century. With missions such as turning door knobs, opening doors, and shooting soccer balls into LEGO goals, teams will have to program their LEGO MINDSTORMS® robots to solve a set of missions on an obstacle course set on a thematic playing surface.
The event also includes nine teams of Junior FIRST LEGO League participants displaying their LEGO models and research projects. Now in its 10th year, Junior FIRST LEGO League is geared toward 6 to 9 year-olds, introducing them to the wonders of science and technology through traditional, open-ended LEGO building with an age-appropriate challenge–“THINK TANK”–based on the FIRST LEGO League theme.
The Finger Lakes Regional Championship Tournament is sponsored by the University of Rochester, Xerox, Wegmans, with additional support from local companies and organizations supporting individual teams throughout the season.
TIME, DATE, PLACE: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, at the Palestra in the Goergen Athletic Center on the University of Rochester’s River Campus. The event is free to attend and is open to the public.
9:00 to 11:30 a.m.: Morning activities include practice rounds and judged presentations from each team.
12:00 to 3:30 p.m.: The tournament continues with the robotics competition, which may provide the best photo and video opportunities.
4:00 to 5:00 p.m.: Closing ceremony.
ABOUT: FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is an international program created in a partnership between FIRST and the LEGO Group in 1998 to get children excited about science and technology–and teach them valuable career and life skills. Using LEGO MINDSTORMS® technologies and LEGO Education materials, children work alongside adult mentors to design, build, and program autonomous robots and create an innovative solution to a problem as part of their research project. After eight intense weeks, the competition season culminates at high-energy, sports-like tournaments. Like any other organized “sport,” teams also fundraise, create a team identity, and go on field trips.
