WHAT: 2018-2019 Northern California FIRST LEGO League East Bay District Championship
FIRST LEGO League (FLL) brings theory and practice together in a global robotics program that ignites enthusiasm for discovery, science and technology in kids. For the last four months, teams of students age 9 to 14 have been working in teams to explore, challenge and innovate in the vast expanse of space while programming and building LEGO robots under the “Into Orbit” theme. The championship is their chance to compete against other teams and show off what they have built and learned. Organizers expect between 500 to 700 attendees, including students who are competing and their families, friends, community guests and volunteers.
WHEN: Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019; 7:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. (Closing awards ceremony at 5 p.m.)
WHERE: University of California, Berkeley, Pauley Ballroom, 2495 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720 (on the third floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union); judging will take place at Dwinelle Hall: Campus Map
WHO: East Bay student teams ranging from ages 9 to 14 will compete against other teams with their LEGO robot, based on the “Into Orbit” theme.
DETAILS: Teams use the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit to design, build and program an autonomous robot to compete in a FIRST-designed game. The game is like an obstacle course using LEGO elements to model challenges related to those encountered by scientists and engineers in theme-related areas. Game challenges include delivering an object or objects to a specific area, collecting or retrieving objects from a specific area and causing an action to occur, such as pushing a lever. The project also encourages students to identify and investigate a problem (also called research), propose an innovative solution and share their team’s results with others.
The event is sponsored by the FLOW project of the Mobile Sensing Lab at UC Berkeley, organized with support of the Institute of Transportation Studies Berkeley (ITS Berkeley) and hosted by Playing At Learning.
Check out the: “We are FIRST” video to learn more. More details can be found here.
For more information, contact Amanda Cairo in UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies at acairo@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-5322.