Torrey Hills robotics teams compete at Legoland

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On Dec. 4 and 5, 24 sixth grade students took part in the First Lego League (FLL) Body Forward Challenge at Legoland. The Torrey Hawks competed in the FLL Championship on Saturday and the Red Hawks and the Black Hawks competed in the FLL Cup on Sunday. There were 60 teams on both days.

Through the 2010 Body Forward Challenge, FLL teams explore the cutting-edge world of biomedical engineering to discover innovative ways to repair injuries, overcome genetic predispositions, and maximize the body’s potential, with the intended purpose of leading happier and healthier lives.

Each FLL Challenge has two parts – the Robot Game and the Project. In the Robot game, teams build and program an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS technology to score points in 2.5-minute matches on a themed playing field. Students are judged on the Robot design and the Robot performance.

In the Project section, teams explore an actual problem that today’s scientists and engineers are trying to solve, develop an innovative solution to that problem (either by creating something that doesn’t exist or building upon something that does), and share their findings.

At Torrey Hills, teams led by Mrs. Krishnan, the science teacher, and coached by Mr. Mark Quan and Mrs. Francis, parent volunteers, worked after school for many hours, building and testing their robots, and interviewed experts in the field of Medicine. Each team focused on one area of the body and researched the injury or disease that afflicts that organ. The students then came up with an innovative idea that would solve the problem and wrote and performed a skit to show their solution. Students worked on the kidneys, the brain and the spinal cord.

Team Red Hawks won first place for their presentation.