NEW: WPI to Host LEGO Robot Competition

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Thursday, November 29, 2012

GolocalWorcester News Team

Three dozen student teams from Massachusetts and New Hampshire will participate in the FIRST LEGO League Qualifier tournament at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) on Saturday, Dec. 1. The event will take place at the Campus Center Odeum from 9a.m. to 5p.m. and is free and open to the public.

A total of 36 teams composed of no more than 10 students between the ages of 9 and 14 will compete for the chance to participate in the state championship, RoboNautica, which will be held Dec. 15 in Harrington Auditorium at WPI. The event is part of the FIRST LEGO League competition.

Nicholas Galotti, a WPI alumnus and the event organizer, noted that FLL sets a different theme for students to embrace every year. This year’s is “Senior Solutions,” in which the students need to learn about problems facing senior citizens and find solutions to these problems. During the day they will present their solutions to judges.

For the competition, teams will build robots out of LEGOs. The robots, in turn, are required to complete several tasks, including gathering green medicine bottles while avoiding orange ones, making a video conference call, planting a garden, and helping with a quilt.

“This event is important because FLL introduces students to engineering problems at a young age through a fun and exciting LEGO robotics competition,” said Galotti. “Through this process we are training bright minds early to solve the problems of today and tomorrow.”

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was created by Segway entrepreneur Dean Kamen, who attended WPI.

Teams from the Massachusetts towns of Acton, Ayer, Chelmsford, Clinton, Cohasset, Douglas, Dover, Medfield, Leominster, Lunenburg, West Newbury, Natick, North Attleborough, Northborough, Shirley, Sutton, Tyngsboro, Monson, Winchester, Worcester and the New Hampshire towns of Dover and Pelham will participate.