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FARMINGTON – An activity that combines several different educational disciplines with brightly-colored building blocks is taking off in Mt. Blue Regional School District, where the LEGO League kids are eagerly awaiting the statewide competition next month.
Two Cascade Brook School teams will travel to Augusta on Dec. 11 to take part in the LEGO League, an international competition utilizing courses and robots built out of the small plastic toys “Legos.”
The company makes basic Legos, which many may recall as small bricks that could snap together to form walls, buildings and cities, as well as Lego NXT robot kits. These kits are utilized by the league’s 5,000 teams to accomplish a number of tasks along an obstacle course.
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Students use laptops to program the robots with a variety of different sensors or plotting methods to guide the whirring machine around the table. This year’s theme is the Human Body, and the course events include splinting a broken bone, inserting a pacemaker, mapping a nervous system and “Bad Cell Destruction” among many others. All require different attachments and different responses from the robot; Bad Cell Destruction, for example, requires that the robot be able to differentiate between white and black and act accordingly, while the nervous system exercise involves pressing pins from multiple directions.
The team’s score revolves around their robot’s performance on the table, as well as a presentation given by the team members to a panel of judges. Cascade Brook School’s two teams, A and B, are making their presentations on the impact of particle pollution on asthma and the science behind designing prosthetic limbs, respectively. The teams often fold in other activities into their presentation, which is why Team A members were busy handing out asthma/pollution-related pamphlets on Halloween, asking people to stop allowing their vehicles to run idle for long periods of time.
“The kids want to do [the League] because they like playing with Legos,” CBS Librarian and Team Coach Barbara Marshall said, surrounded by students discussing their presentation, “but they learn how to research, about teamwork.”
Local schools are no strangers to the competition. A team from MBRSD, “Two Bee Determined,” took second-place in the “General” category at states last year, and some of the students from that team have been involved in the new teams’ instruction this year. In Jay, a middle school team called “6 Chics and a Dude” took first place at states and went on to take first place in the “Sharing Award” category at the national event in Atlanta, GA.
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Is their a lego league in Wilton? How old do you have to be to join. If not lets start one, my son is a LEGO MANIAC
This is the link which explains what is involved in setting up a team. I think Wilton has had teams in the past. Speak with you local schools to get more information.
http://www.firstlegoleague.org/ oops, here is the link.
It’s great to see schools like this one getting students actively problem solving and learning. How can a kid not love going to school when these types of activities await them? Thanks to all who are involved in making this happen!