As Red Lion Christian continues to grow, new opportunities arise each year for the students to get involved. This year saw the introduction of the school to the FIRST LEGO League (FLL).FLL is an international competition for students 9-14 years of age that is designed to inspire them in the fields of technology and science. The center piece of the program is its robotics competition where the students build robots using Lego Mindstorm kits that must then compete in a 2.5 minute challenge.
As I'm sure you surmised by now, Alex took part in this program this year which culminated in a qualifying competition at the Conrad School of Science this past Saturday.
Beginning back in September, RLCA assembled 3 teams. Alex's team, the Bloxerz, worked for 3 months to not only design and program their 'bot, but also to research and prepare a presentation for a solution to the local problem of their choice.
The Bloxerz chose to tackle the problem of evacuating the Delaware shore in the event of a major hurricane. Their solution: A high speed maglev train that would be able to evacuate the beach goers and residents in 24 hours. To fund this ambitious project, they proposed tying into a similar project slated for the Baltimore/DC corridor that was being funded with Federal Stimulus money.
To make their pitch to the judges on Saturday, the Bloxerz staged a mock news cast from the Delaware shore.
After 2 other separate interview sessions, the boys moved onto the robot competition. The robot competition involves completing a series of tasks on a table top. The layout is determined by FLL at the beginning of the season and the boys worked furiously to prep their robot for the specific challenges. To complete all of the tasks available would result in a perfect score of 400 points. Being our boys first year, the team decided to focus in on a few tasks they felt they could do well...
The run highlighted above netted the Bloxerz a score of 130. Their other 2 attempts yielded scores of 120 and 125.
In the end, the Bloxerz didn't place and won't be progressing to the next level which will be held at the Bob Carpenter Center in January. But the boys had a lot of fun. And there's always next year.
On a brighter note, one of RLCA's teams, the Lego Knights, will be progressing. So congratulations to the Knights on that...
