FIRST LEGO League contest draws 50 teams

  • Published
  • By Bill Hancock
  • 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Motors buzzed as miniature, hand-built robots propelled themselves across a mapped playing field while young future scientists and engineers tested their mettle during the FIRST LEGO League Ohio State Championship tournament Feb. 7-8 at the Ervin J. Nutter Center on the campus of Wright State University.

The weekend event was sponsored by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base's Educational Outreach Office and brought together teams of some of Ohio's brightest 9 to 14 year-old students to demonstrate their engineering and problem-solving skills, critical thinking, teamwork, competitive play, sportsmanship and sense of community. Fifty teams from across the Buckeye state competed in this annual science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) event.

"This state championship was a huge success and an honor for us to host these top teams in the state of Ohio as they compete for a bid to the world festival to be held in St. Louis, Missouri, in April 2015." said Dann Andrews, coordinator, Wright-Patterson AFB Educational Outreach Office, and director, STARBASE Wright-Patterson. "It was truly amazing to see these young folks practicing and applying their curiosity and skills in a STEM field of science."

The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) organization was founded by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. Since 1988, FIRST and the LEGO Group have partnered to challenge youth teams who use LEGO bricks, motors, gears and software to design and build robots to solve real-world engineering challenges. 

The FLL Ohio State Championship is the culminating tournament in Ohio. It consists of 26 regional tournaments and five district tournaments. Of the 465 teams represented in Ohio, the top 50 teams were represented at this state championship event.

The results of the Ohio State championship included: 
· First-place Champion's Award: "Lightning Trampolines" of Springboro;
· Second-place Champion's Award: "Incredibots" of Columbus;
· Third-place Champion's Award: "LEGO Legion" of Cincinnati;
· Ambassador Award: "Alpha Girls" from Ross Middle School (Hamilton);
· Founder's Award Team: "Lightning Trampolines" from Springboro Robotics Team.

Additional local participants included teams from: Springboro, Oakwood, Dayton, Kettering, Beaver-creek, Xenia, Vandalia and the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery and the Montessori Center.

"Since 2001, the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has been the sup-porting body of Ohio FLL by providing the funding and volunteers necessary to run the program," said Brenda Ronnebaum, state FIRST LEGO League director and Educational Outreach Office robotics program manager at Wright-Patterson AFB. "It's our goal to show children that math and science is fun and to encourage them to pursue careers in a STEM-related field."

For more information about the championship tournament and the Ohio FIRST LEGO League pro-gram, visit http://edoutreach.wpafb.af.mil/ohfll.html.

Federal endorsement of sponsors is not intended.