LEGO Robotics competition held
By Rick Henly on Monday, January 4th, 2010 |
Written by Henry Easley
FIRST Lego League held its tenth annual Indiana state championship on Saturday, December 12th. Huntington’s participant (3669 Thunderbirds) went to IPFW in Fort Wayne for the state competition.
This team is different from the 1501 Thrust team because everything must be made of Legos. This team is made up of carefully selected middle school students and this was the first attempt for this kind of competition for Huntington County. The 48 teams attending Saturday’s competition had previously participated in regional qualifying events.
The Thunderbirds placed 13th in the performance part of the competition and second in teamwork and did well overall. For this competition you must program the robot to do “missions” to get points. Teams scored in four categories. In addition to performance and teamwork, there are awards for robot design and project.
Our project had to be about transportation. The problem we identified as an accident caused by driver distraction. We interviewed people from the community involved in transportation. This includes representatives from Pathfinder Services, HAT and the city police department. We developed possible solutions and submitted a proposal. We also performed a skit based on our work.
The robot design was based on missions we had to run. This included going under and over obstacles, picking things up and stopping in an exact spot. We decided to make the robot four wheel drive. At the regional competition we won an award for robot design.
I enjoyed the competition and just working with friends. Building with Legos and programming computers is fun too. Thanks to all our sponsors, coaches and parents for a great season.
Editor's Note: Huntington Free Press hopes to have more articles written by students that we can help get out to the community about various local subjects. This venue is but one way we can show our support for our youth.
Comments...
Nice article.
Quentin M. Lintz posted on January 5th, 2010 @ 16:12:27
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