Lego robots, along with creative thinking, problem-solving skills and teamwork, will be in action at the University of Waterloo on Sunday.
WATERLOO, Ont. (Friday, Jan. 11, 2013) - Lego robots, along with creative thinking, problem-solving skills and teamwork, will be in action at the University of Waterloo on Sunday, January 13, 2013 as 400 children aged nine to 14 compete in the 2012 FIRST Lego League (FLL) West Provincial Championships.
FLL teams have spent the past 12 weeks building and programming Lego Mindstorm® robots that are part of this year’s Senior Solutions challenge. The robots will compete in up to 16 missions on a specialized mat. The assignments include bringing a chair to a table, picking up high and low objects, turning off a stove, and getting flags to rise on a video screen to allow video connection and bowling. Teams will also present projects where they apply creativity and science to develop new solutions to help seniors stay independent, engaged and connected. This year, as part of the project challenge, teams were required to identify a senior citizen and help solve a problem that affected their senior partner’s life.
The FLL West Championship will be held on Sunday, January 13 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Physical Activities Complex on the University of Waterloo campus. Admission is free and the public is welcome to attend.
Professor Maud Gorbet, of the Department of Systems Design Engineering at Waterloo, and Brad Morris, a recent Waterloo mechatronics engineering graduate and the FIRST coordinator for Waterloo Region, have both coached local teams and, as part of WE-Connect Waterloo Engineering Outreach activities, have spearheaded increased community involvement in the program and organized events for the local FLL teams.
"This program is fantastic for kids with science and engineering minds," said Gorbet. "It gives them a chance to sharpen and develop skills including competitive play and sportsmanship. It also provides them with a sense of community."
Competing in the West Championships will be 40 teams from all over Western Ontario, including nine from Halton, eight from Mississauga, four from Sarnia, three from Sault Ste. Marie, and two from Sudbury. Eleven local teams advanced to the Championships after competing in FLL qualifier events held at St. David Catholic Secondary School and Eastwood Collegiate Institute in December. The provincial tournament winners will compete in the First Lego League World Festival to be held in April in St. Louis. It’s the biggest season ever for the 13-year-old FLL with more than 20,000 teams in more than 70 countries competing in hundreds of qualifying and championship tournaments.
The FLL program offers a unique way for students to enjoy fun hands-on learning based on solving real-world problems. Students work as a team with teachers and parents acting as coaches and team mentors. Each year, the response from students has exceeded expectations, and local schools participating in the event often have more than one team to accommodate as many kids as possible.
This year, Google staff participated in FLL in the Waterloo Region by hosting training sessions for coaches and weekly drop-in sessions for local teams. “Google is a strong supporter of FLL in the Region,” said Morris. “Their drop-in sessions not only provided a meeting place for teams to work on their robots, but the students also learned advanced programming techniques and were able to excel in all areas of the competition.”
The West FLL Provincials are funded by FedDev and the Province of Ontario, and are sponsored by Waterloo Engineering and the Yves Landry Foundation. The teams will be judged for project presentation, robot performance, technical design and programming of the robot, and teamwork. The highest honour will go to the team that best exemplifies the spirit and values of the program.
FIRST Lego League (FLL) is an international program for nine to 14-year-old children created in a partnership between FIRST and The LEGO Group in 1998 to get children excited about science and technology - and teach them valuable employment and life skills. Using LEGO MINDSTORMS® technologies and LEGO Education materials, children work alongside adult mentors to design, build and program autonomous robots and create an innovative solution to a problem as part of their research project. After eight intense weeks, the competition season culminates at high-energy, sports-like tournaments. Like any other organized "sport," teams also fundraise, create a team identity and go on field trips.
The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo is ranked among the top 50 engineering schools in the world. It is Canada’s largest engineering school with approximately 6,840 undergraduate students, 1,945 graduate students and 295 faculty members. It is home to the University of Waterloo School of Architecture and seven other academic units, which are working to prepare the leaders of tomorrow and address social, technology, business and policy needs through ground-breaking research. More than 33,000 alumni are making their mark in industry, academe and the public sector worldwide. For further information, visit: http://www.engineering.uwaterloo.ca.
In just half a century, the University of Waterloo, located at the heart of Canada's technology hub, has become one of Canada's leading comprehensive universities with 34,000 full- and part-time students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Waterloo, as home to the world's largest post-secondary co-operative education program, embraces its connections to the world and encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research and discovery. In the next decade, the university is committed to building a better future for Canada and the world by championing innovation and collaboration to create solutions relevant to the needs of today and tomorrow. For more information about Waterloo, please visit www.uwaterloo.ca.
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Pamela Smyth
Media Relations Officer
Communications & Public Affairs
University of Waterloo
519.888.4777
