Volunteers Needed For State Lego Robotics Event At WKU

November 14, 2007

Louisville, Ky. - About 100 volunteers are needed to assist with the Kentucky FIRST LEGO League’s robotics competition Jan. 19 at Western Kentucky University.

About 660 children will be on the WKU campus for the state competition. Volunteers (who need to be 16 or older) can choose from a list of jobs including setup/cleanup crews, referees and registration attendants. (The list is available online at http://kyfll.org/index.php?q=Volunteer.)

The theme of this year’s event is “Alternative Energy Resources – Meeting the Global Demand,” which calls for teams to research and present robotics technology solutions to help solve mounting problems in global energy consumption. Teams consist of five to 10 children ages 9-14 along with coaches and mentors.

This year’s special guest will be Grant Imahara from the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters.” Imahara, a mentor to a FIRST Robotics Team and a judge for a FIRST LEGO League event, will be available to talk to teams and give insight into the world of robotics. 

The WKU event will include a Junior FIRST LEGO League competition for children ages 6 to 9 and a chemistry magic show by Lowell Shank.

More than 65 teams from Bowling Green, Louisville, Lexington, northern Kentucky, Elizabethtown, Paducah, Greenup and Owensboro have entered the state competition. The event will begin at 9 a.m. Jan. 19 at Diddle Arena and will conclude with an awards ceremony at 5 p.m.

In the competition, teams build a robot to perform various tasks as part of the challenge. Teams are also judged on teamwork, research project and technical aspects. Sponsors for the state tournament include Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, WKU Ogden College of Science and Engineering, and the Provost’s Initiative for Excellence at WKU.

Information is available online at http://kyfll.org/ and www.firstlegoleague.org.  

Last year about 6,000 teams competed worldwide with about 7,700 teams from 30 countries expected this year.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter. FIRST is a multinational non-profit organization, that aspires to transform culture, making science, math, engineering and technology as cool for kids as sports are today.
FIRST and The LEGO Company created the FIRST LEGO League based on their common belief that fun and learning go hand-in-hand, and that an inspired mind can accomplish anything. Each year, children ages 9 to 14 form teams and spend eight weeks working alongside adult mentors to research, design, build and program robots to solve real-world problems using LEGO MINDSTORMS™ technologies and LEGO bricks. The season culminates at high-energy, sports-like tournaments with judges and awards.

The annual challenge brings the reality of science and technology to children on an intimate, hands-on level where they apply engineering and computer programming principles and presentation techniques to devise solutions. Past challenges have focused on the use of robotics technology in planetary research missions and environmental search and rescue operations, in assessing global climate change, in issues dealing with urban planning, and simulating the research objectives of NASA’s historic Mars Exploration Rovers mission.

For information about the state competition, contact event coordinator Karla Andrew at (270) 784-5705 or karla.andrew@wku.edu or assistant coordinator John Inman at (270) 745-3048 or john.inman@wku.edu.
               
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact Karla Andrew at (270) 784-5705 or John Inman at (270) 745-3048.