Public Event at Marshall University
December 3, 2005
FLL 2005 Ocean Odyssey
December 3, 2005
Six teams from around Huntington competed today in the FIRST LEGO® League (FLL) Ocean Odyssey Challenge at Marshall University Morrow Library Public Technology area. The global competition was brought to the region for the first time through a partnership between RTI and Linda Hamilton. The Public Event put eight weeks of research, design, and programming to the test, giving local students the chance to prepare for the State Tournament on December 10, 2005 in Wheeling.
30 area children, ages 9 to 14, are among the record 63,000 students around the world who have risen to the 2005 FLL Ocean Odyssey Challenge to help solve mounting problems in the worlds oceans. To successfully complete the Ocean Odyssey Challenge, teams of young people must build and program a LEGO MINDSTORMS� robot that addresses the study and protection of the health, biodiversity, and productivity of the oceans. Challenge missions include, among others, preventing pollution, responsible fishing, releasing a dolphin, and locating sunken treasure.
FLL is a partnership between the LEGO Group and FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), which was founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire young peoples interest and participation in science and technology. FLL is the middle school component of the FIRST Robotics Competition, an international contest that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in a competitive way. Kamen visited Rensselaer Dec. 1 to meet with area students involved in FIRST competitions and to deliver a lecture on innovation and entrepreneurship.
�Every FLL challenge helps students discover how imagination and creativity combined with science and technology can solve real-world problems,� Kamen says. The FLL competition is judged in five areas: research and presentation; robot performance; technical mechanics of the robot's construction; teamwork; and gracious professionalism. The highest honor will go to the team that best exemplifies the spirit and values of the program.
FLL�s seventh year is also its biggest season, with close to 7,700 teams
� more than 63,000 students � from 30 countries competing in hundreds of
qualifying events and tournaments. Regional winners will have a chance
to participate at the FIRST LEGO League World Festival, to be held in conjunction
with the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship for high-school students,
April 27-29, 2006 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia.
At the end all the team member shook the hands of each adult, received
congratulations,
and certificate.