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Saturday morning, the Board of Education Excellence Hall buzzed with energy as young robotics enthusiasts gathered for an exhilarating First Lego League (FLL) event. Students from various school systems across Southwest Georgia showcased their creativity, teamwork, and innovation through their remarkable robots.

The event served as a crucial opportunity for new FLL teams to practice running robot rounds, refine their strategies, and learn from one another. This is all part of the Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition that FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) promotes through their CORE VALUES:Discovery, Innovation, Impact, Inclusion, Teamwork, and Fun.  As teams set up their robots on the competition tables, students talked about strategies that would solve the 15 Ocean Exploration themed missions which are part of the 2024-2025 “Submerged” Season. Students built and programmed autonomous robots to journey through the 4 foot by 8 foot field strategically to accomplish as many tasks as possible within the 2:30 minute time limit. Some of these strategic tasks include feeding Krill to a whale, delivering a scuba diver to a coral nursery, finding Kraken’s treasure, capturing an “unknown creature”, or relocating a shark to its habitat. Despite being competitors, each team shared their robot, mission ideas, coding solutions, and strategies to work together and learn from each other.

Amy Zock, Director of Instructional Technology and Digital Learning, stated “It’s amazing to see how much effort the kids put into their robots. Each team has its unique approach, and watching them learn from each other is what FLL is all about.” Supported by coaches, parents and mentors, students were hard at work improving their scores throughout the event and discovering new ways to accomplish the same task.

Elizabeth Hill, Explore, Teacher, Computer Science/Robotics, stated “This is just what our students needed to feel confident before competing in December.” Hill has two rookie 8th grade teams from Bainbridge Middle Schools that are competing this year. “I can already see so much improvement from one day working together.” Danielle Jones from Grady County echoed this sentiment as her students were able to add new missions to their list during the day as well.

Joined by Danylle Larkin, Eve Cuero, Julia Kim from GaTECH CEISMC, as well as Candace Christian and Dr. Willie Allen from Southern Regional Technical College who sponsored the event and provided resources and food to keep the students going. SRTC is excited to be hosting the first SWGA regional tournament for these new teams on December 14 at the Thomasville campus. If you are interested in volunteering or getting involved with FLL please contact Dr. Sherry Allen or Amy Zock for more information.