News : 5th Grade LEGO League teams advance to State

V-S 5th Grade Lego Teams will advance to the state competetion

The Vinton Shellsburg 5th Grade Lego Teams represented themselves well at the First LEGO League competition on Saturday. Both 5th-grade teams will move on to the State level competition.

"Play Well" The Danish translation of that phrase is "leg godt." The first two letters of those two Danish words have kept Vinton-Shellsburg 5th through 8th-grade students busy working, learning and playing well - and together - for much of this school year.

The State First Lego League competition, was held and the 5th graders combined their computer skills, teamwork and their ability to build with those little plastic interlocking bricks made by the company started in 1932 in the village of Billund, Denmark.

The First Lego League is a joint effort between Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and Lego Group owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the grandson of the original Lego inventor.

V-S students are among more than 320,000 participants competing on 40,000 teams with 40,000 robots, in more than 1,450 event in 98 countries.

What FLL is:

The students in each First Lego League team begin each year with the same items: They build with pieces from the Lego Mindstorms Education Set, which is a collection of Lego blocks, wheels, gears and other tools. They also can keep parts from previous years to add to their options. The "brain" of the robot is a computerized device known as the Lego Mindstorm, which comes in a couple of versions.

The Challenge

Each Challenge has three parts: the Robot Game, the Innovation Project, and the Core Values. Teams of up to ten children, with at least two adult coaches, participate in the Challenge by programming an autonomous robot to score points on a themed playing field (Robot Game), developing a solution to a problem they have identified (Project), all guided by the FIRST Core Values. Teams may then attend an official tournament, hosted by our FIRST LEGO League Partners.

Past Challenges have been based on topics such as nanotechnology, climate, quality of life for the handicapped population, and transportation. By designing our Challenges around such topics, participants are exposed to potential career paths within a chosen Challenge topic, in addition to solidifying the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) principles that naturally come from participating in the program. Team members also learn valuable life and employment skills which will benefit them no matter which career path they choose

Official tournaments must follow the judging and awards structure determined by FIRST LEGO League. Although the audience mostly sees teams playing the Robot Game at tournaments, teams are also being judged on:

• Core Values
• Innovation Project
• Robot Design

Congratulations to our 5th grade Champs good luck at the state competition!

Photo courtesy of Melanie Davis