FSU to Host 2013 FIRST LEGO League Robotics Tournament

The Fairmont State University College of Science and Technology will host the West Virginia FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) robotics tournament on Saturday, Dec. 7.

The event will take place at the Falcon Center and will be open to the public from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7. More than 1,000 people, including 60 teams of students, are expected to attend.

Sponsors of this year’s challenge are NASA IV&V, Fairmont State University, WV Space Grant Consortium, Par Mar Stores, Thrasher Engineering and the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission.

The FLL is part of the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST®) organization, an international nonprofit agency with the mission of inspiring the future workforce to appreciate the excitement and personal rewards of a career in science and technology. In partnership with LEGO®, the FLL is an international robotics program in which teams of young people assemble and compete with robots that are designed to accomplish tasks associated with a real-world challenge.

In the “2013 NATURE’S FURY Challenge,” more than 228,000 children, ages 9 to 14, from more than 80 countries, will explore the awe-inspiring storms, quakes, waves and more that are called natural disasters.

Teams competing in Fairmont on Dec. 7 will demonstrate that they have been able to:

• Build, test and program an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS to solve a set of missions on a Nature’s Fury obstacle course.
• Learn about a natural event that could cause a natural disaster and research safety problems that arise during that type of disaster.
• Create an innovative solution to help keep people and property safe before, during or after the natural disaster and present their solutions to judges and their communities.

Also, the public will be able to view the innovative solutions to natural disasters that students K-3 have created as participants in Jr. FLL. They will demonstrate LEGO builds that relate to a natural disaster and present posters showing what they have learned. 

Teams from FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition will be on hand to demonstrate the types of robots that the FLL students can advance to build and compete with in FTC and FRC competitions.

Accomplished inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST® in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology and engineering.

With support from more than 200 of the Fortune 500 companies and more than $16 million in college scholarships, the not-for-profit organization hosts the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC ) for students in grades 9-12; FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC ) for grades 7-12; FIRST LEGO League (FLL ) for grades 4-8; and Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL^®) for grades K-3. Gracious Professionalism, a key component of FIRST, is a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others and respects individuals and the community. To learn more about FIRST, visit www.usfirst.org.

For more information about the Fairmont State College of Science and Technology, click here.

College of Science and TechnologyWest Virginia FIRST LEGO League robotics Tournament