FIRST LEGO League

For the third consecutive year, Zachary and Ryan participated in FIRST LEGO League.

FIRST was founded in 1989 to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology, and is an organization whose founder has this vision:

"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes."

Nathan J. and Zachary watch as their robot starts across the table on the way to its first mission.

In 2007, FIRST sponsored 5 different types of competitions:

FIRST Robotics Competition for high-school students

FIRST Tech Challenge for high-school students

FIRST LEGO League for 9 to 14 year-olds

Junior FIRST LEGO League for 6 to 9 year-olds

FIRST Place for ages 6 to adult

FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is an international competition, and in 2007 included over 10,000 teams from 38 countries.


Ryan and Matthew prepare their robot and accessories for their round of competition.


Each September, FLL issues the Challenge. The Challenge has a different theme each year and consists of two parts: (1) accomplishing specific Missions with your robot at a competition (the robot must be designed, built, and programmed beforehand; missions must be performed in 2 1/2 minutes at the competition); and (2) identifying a real-life problem (based on that year's theme), proposing a solution(s) for the problem, and presenting that solution to your community (and doing a presentation on the entire project for the judges at the Competition).

2007's theme was Power Puzzle: Energy Resources - Meeting the Global Demand. For the real-life problem, our team (the 2 Watt Bots :-)) chose to perform an energy audit on a local fire station to assist them in finding alternate energy sources. They presented their findings to a city official, and were even featured on a spot on our local TV station.

High-fives all around after a great score!


Our state tournament is in December each year, so the team had only 3 months to finish all the work required to participate.

The guys in the yellow shirts are judges. Right after this picture was made, several other judges came over to watch as our team competed in this round. I happened to overhear them talking very favorably about our robot's design and performance. Hmmmm.

Great job, team!!

The 2 Watt Bots won the 1st place trophy for Robot Design. They received nominations as finalists in four other categories: Programming, Universal Design, Research Quality, and the prestigious Champion's Award. They also finished in 3rd place in the Robotic Competition.

They are eagerly awaiting the release of the 2008 Challenge!