Greenbelt Bots, the youngest team competing, won first prize in the Innovation category in the Maryland First Lego League (FLL) qualifier event held in Joppa, Md., on Saturday, January 27. The young team thereby qualified for the Maryland First Lego League Championship, an invitation-only competition bringing together the winning teams of all the Maryland qualifying events, which will take place at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County on Saturday, February 24.
FLL’s stated aims are to introduce science, technology, engineering and math to children through hands-on learning in a guided, global robotics program. FLL’s three divisions encourage youth to experiment and grow their critical thinking, coding and design skills.
In this year’s competition, themed Masterpiece, participants were tasked with communicating about art in innovative ways. The innovation project of the Greenbelt Bots, Math In Visual Art, won overall first place. In the interview with the judges, team members articulated ideas to help educators teach math in innovative ways. The team’s hands-on presentation demonstrated to the judges that math and art, taught together, will be fun for students.
The team’s co-mentors are Korak Saha, a research scientist at the University of Maryland, and Praveen Noojipady, a senior scientist at NASA Goddard.
“We are hoping that our local team’s achievement can be publicized to encourage more kids from Greenbelt to join the program,” said Noojipady. “Also, we are in dire need of a community space for our local team to practice and we need community support.”
In last year’s FLL competition, at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, the team’s innovation challenge was how to reduce the carbon footprint of hydroelectric power generation. Logistical surprises challenged the team, being first-time competitors and the youngest team of the field. Nonetheless, they finished in the top 15 for the day and, in FLL’s Core Values, they took second place. (See story in the February 9, 2023, issue of the News Review.)
For more information on the State Championship, visit marylandfll.org/event/state-championship.
