RI First Lego League kicks off

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FLL participants and coaches study this year's robot challenge board.

Rhode Island's First Lego League (FLL) robotics program launched their 2013-14 season this morning with scores of coaches, parents, and enthusiastic students attending the kickoff event at New England Institute of Technology in East Greenwich.

The theme for this year's event is "Nature's Fury," and today's participants were able to get a first look at the "robot game" (the set of challenges each team's Lego robot must be programmed to complete) as well as learn more about the specs for the research project (which, this year, must focus on natural disasters.)

Mary Johnson, the executive director of the RI School of the Future, one of the main sponsors of FLL, was on hand to talk with coaches and participants. "Registration is open for another week," she told harddeadlines, adding that any teams thinking about joining should act now. "When FLL hits 20,0000 teams globally, registration closes."

Last year, according to a handout, more than 500 Rhode Island students, ages 9-14, participated in 65 FLL teams that faced off in a series of qualifying competitions judging robotics programming and research skills, which must all be executed with teamwork and core values including "gracious professionalism" and "coopertition."

For this year's research challenge, teams must identify a disaster scenario caused by a force of nature -- including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes -- and identify a solution to one of the problems it causes in a specific community. The robot challenge uses a game board designed to evoke "the destructive energy of natural events," and includes tasks like delivering water and supplies, moving people and pets, and triggering a cargo plane to fly down a wire to the runway; this year also includes new penalties for uncollected strategic pieces ("junk") and excess robot width ("sprawl.") Full challenge details are available in a pdf on the FLL site.

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FLL RI Executive Director Mary Johnson confers with a coach.

National Grid has come on board this year as a sponsor for the first time in Rhode Island, according to Johnson. "We're pleased and excited to have National Grid," she said. "We can grow without raising team fees." Other sponsors include SAIC, Roger Williams University, NE Tech, and Edwards Wildman.

FLL RI plans a series of programming workshops and a "meet the experts" event over the next two months before the qualifying tournaments begin in November. There are four planned, in Narragansett, Riverside, Bristol, and Newport (at Salve Regina University on December 8) all leading up to the state championship event at RWU in January. Last year, the All Saints Academy team from Middletown won the state title and took first place in the presentation category at the world festival in St. Louis.

More information is available at the RI School for the Future and the FLL site.