Wright-Patterson AFB to sponsor FIRST® LEGO® League Ohio Championship

  • Published
  • 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio – The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Educational Outreach Office will sponsor the FIRST® LEGO® League Ohio Championship Tournament at the Ervin J. Nutter Center, on the campus of Wright State University, Feb. 3, from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.

The annual event will bring together teams of some of Ohio’s brightest 9 to 14 year-old students who will demonstrate their engineering and problem-solving skills, critical thinking, teamwork, competitive play, sportsmanship, and sense of community.

Since 2001, the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force base has supported the Ohio FIRST LEGO League by providing the funding and volunteers necessary to help run the program.

“FIRST  LEGO  League is an exciting, engaging, and fun program in which students get to learn about robots, programming, the engineering design process, teamwork, collaboration, and more,” said Brenda Ronnebaum, Ohio’s FIRST  LEGO League Director and Educational Outreach Office Robotics Program Manager. “It’s our goal to show children that math, science, and engineering is fun and to encourage them to pursue careers in a STEM related field.”

FIRST ® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), is an organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology 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. 

This year’s theme for the event is INTO ORBIT. Teams were tasked with identifying human physical or social problems faced by humans during long-term space exploration within our Sun’s solar system, create an innovative solution to this problem, and share their solution with others.

Sixty teams from across the state will compete in this event. Local teams participating are: 1923 Robot Raptors (St Christopher Elementary School), 4505 Vikings of the Cosmos (Community Team), 15866 Thunder-Bots (Northmont), 17361 IDKY (Community Team), 19186 Meteor Crashers (Tri-County North Elementary School), 19619 Waves (Community Team), 20137 ElkBots (Magsig Middle School), 24139 Technonati (The Miami Valley School), 25239 LE’GOrgeous Lego Ladies (Community Team), 32411 QuickBots (Community Team), 31767 Mindstorm Monsters (Community Team).

Along with the FIRST LEGO League Ohio Championship, a FIRST LEGO League Jr. Expo, a design and build program for teams of two to six children between the ages of six and ten, and a FIRST Tech Challenge scrimmage, a robotics competition program for high school students, will be held.  Forty FIRST LEGO League Jr. teams from around the state will show off their MISSION MOON season through their LEGO models and their Show Me research posters from 9 a.m. until 12:00 p.m., and several FIRST Tech Challenge teams from Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus will scrimmage from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. 

“The Ohio FIRST LEGO League Championship is the culminating tournament in Ohio’s program, which consists of 30 regional tournaments and six district qualifying tournaments which took place November through January. There are 524 teams in Ohio, the top 60 teams will represent Ohio at the championship event,” Ronnebaum said. 

 

Four teams will be identified to continue working on their Project and compete in a world-wide competition for the Global Innovation Award. In addition to these four teams, seven Ohio teams will qualify to advance to international competitions in April through July.

The FIRST LEGO League Ohio Championship is sponsored by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Educational Outreach, Wright State University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, The Ohio Educational Outreach Foundation, Rockwell Automation, KBRwyle, Holiday Inn Fairborn, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Dayton Section.    

 

The competition is free and open to the public.

 

For more information about the championship tournament and the Ohio FIRST® LEGO® League program, visit http://wpafbstem.com/pages/k12_FLL_overview.html

Federal endorsement of sponsors is not intended.

 

Other Ohio teams:

 

Cincinnati area teams:

2751 Lego Legion (Home school team), 12723 Beyond The Stars (Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy), 15817 The Official Emmets (Community Team), 17940 Legion of LEGOs (Montgomery Elementary School), 18059 Brick Girls (Sycamore Junior High School), 24741 Robo Rangers (Community Team), 25313 CRE8 (Community Team), 25340 Houston We Have More Problems (Community Team), 30958 Robotic Rebels (Mason Intermediate Elementary School), 30985 CometBots (Mason Intermediate Elementary School), 38060 (Legomoji), 31251 Lego Legends (Community Team), 33485 Beast Builders (Community Team)

 

Columbus and Central Ohio area teams:

4094 Lost in Lego (Community Team), 7281 Techno Warriors (Dublin Robotics Boosters), 8220 8 to Automate (Dublin Robotics Boosters), 15713 Techasaurus (Community Team ), 19625 Techno Storm (Community Team), 19278 Granville Master Builders (Denison University Team), 23649 Robo Wizards (Community Team ), 27074 LV Super Bots (Community Team), 31144 Mechanical Masterminds (Avery Elementary School), 32421 AstroNUTS (Community Team), 32708 Scientific Sorcerers (Community Team), 33597 Robo Flow (Community Team), 34554 Mechanized Eagles (New Albany Middle School), 38834 Lavabots (Community Team)

 

NE Ohio-Cleveland/Akron/Youngstown area teams:

297 Brain Bots (Community Team), 2493 Buzz Buzz Sting Sting (Kirtland Middle School), 5059 Bovine Warriorz (Community Team), 6089 The Resistance (Community Team), 10135 Tech Tornadoes (St Paul School), 12595 Robonauts Return (Community Team), 23558 Neon Thinkers (Rockwell Automation Team), 24885 Gardeners of the Galaxy (School of Innovation), 31054 Dynamic Developers (Leighton Elementary School), 35607 Nebulas (30958 Robotic Rebels (School of Innovation), 36087 Osteoblasts (School of Innovation), 38303 The Team Who Must Not Be Named (Laurel School), 38936 SPARX (Harmon Middle School)

 

Toledo area teams:

481 Mutant Minds (Sylvan Elementary School),482 Twisted Toys (Sylvan Elementary School),  483 Digital Dragons (Sylvan Elementary School) 484 Blockheads (Sylvania STEM Center), 1801 Meteordroids (Girl Scouts of the USA), 5276 Octobots (St Patrick Elementary School), 17272  Aisle of Misfit Toys (Ottawa Hills Elementary School), 26611 Fort Loramie Circuit Breakers (Fort Loramie Elementary School), 38226 Green Oxygen (Community Team)