Century Strikers Win Award at FLL World Festival

Post date: Jul 30, 2013 3:56:10 PM

April 27th, 2013, St. Louis, MO - 80 teams from 33 countries competed in the FIRST^® LEGO League World Festival this past week, including the Lincoln Middle School Robotics team, the Century Strikers. At the 4 day competition, held at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO, teams celebrated science and technology and presented their solutions to help Senior Citizens remain Independent, Engaged and Connected, as part of the FLL “Senior Solutions™” Challenge. The competition was judged in four areas: project presentation; robot performance; technical design and programming of the robot; and teamwork, with a consideration of the FLL Core Values.

Teams participate in the Challenge by programming an autonomous robot to score points on a playing field (Robot Game) within a set time (2½ minutes) and developing an innovative solution to a problem they have identified (Project), all guided by the FLL Core Values. In order to win the Champions Award and proceed to the National level, a team must present and perform well in all four parts of the FLL Challenge.

As part of this years challenge, the teams researched problems that Seniors struggle with. The "Strikers" discovered that vision issues are a major cause of Seniors mistaking their medication. The team developed Medi-Scan, a solution that would place QR Codes on medicine bottles, along with a tablet application that reads the QR codes and displays the prescription information in a large font that can be easily read by seniors.

After completing their presentations, the Strikers received 2 call back interviews from the Judges. One for the design and construction of their robot, Colossus, and one for the research on their solution presentation, Medi-Scan. At the awards ceremony on Saturday, they walked away with the 3rd Place Award for Project Research.

The FLL World Festival was much more the just competition and awards. Strikers coach Jamie Beedy says, "The team was able to meet and spend time with 80 of the best and brightest teams from around the world. And being able to spend time with other teams was an unbelievable way to meet and learn, not only about the other teams project solutions and robots, but also to learn first hand about the lives of kids from the different states and countries that were represented. And with the shared interest in FLL, that gave the boys an instant conversation starter."

Top honors went to Champion’s Award 1st Place winner, Team 16100, Untitled 1, Bath, England; Champion’s Award 2nd Place winner, Team 16850, SESI Robotics School, Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Champion’s Award 3rd Place winner, Team 742, Robo Raiders, Lebanon, Ill.

Lincoln Middle School Robotics sponsors two teams yearly that compete in the FIRST^® LEGO League yearly Challenge.