Spectators and students from the Lego Ninjas watch in suspense while their teammates supervise their robot as it makes its way through the obstacle course under referee supervision.
Spectators and students from the Lego Ninjas watch in suspense while their teammates supervise their robot as it makes its way through the obstacle course under referee supervision.
A student from X-Treme Botz from Skagway watches as his team's robot completes a challenge mission.
Emcee Andy Kline, right, and team members from Masters of the LEGOverse cross their fingers and hold their breath as their robot attempts to make its way up a ramp.
Referees and judges observe as student teams' robots compete challenge missions at the Juneau Robot Jamboree at Centennial Hall last Saturday.
Story last updated at 11/25/2009 - 12:03 pm
JUNEAU - On Saturday, Nov. 21, eleven student teams from Juneau as well as teams from Sitka, Hoonah and Skagway competed at Centennial Hall in an exciting sport for the mind: the third annual FIRST® LEGO® League Juneau Robot Jamboree.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League, or FLL, was founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. This year nearly 150,000 children ages 9 to 14 in more than 50 countries will explore solutions to issues in modern transportation through hands-on, minds-on teamwork revolving around the 2009 FLL Challenge theme, Smart Move.
Smart Move is a two-part Challenge consisting of a project and a robot game. In the project phase, teams identified a problem with the way people, animals, information or things travel in their community, created an innovative solution and shared it outside the team. In the robot game, teams confronted some of today's transportation safety and efficiency problems and applied robotics, sensor technology, and fresh thinking to solve them. Challenge missions included efficiency planning, object avoidance, climbing steep bridges with no guardrails, passenger transport and crash tests.
The Juneau Robot Jamboree was one of two local Alaska qualifying tournaments this year, the other being Bethel's Southwest Regional FIRST LEGO League Tournament in early December. It is hoped that an unofficial tournament in Kenai in December will become official as a third qualifying tournament next year. The local qualifying tournaments will be followed by championship tournaments in Fairbanks on December 5 and in Anchorage on January 16.
