FIRST Lego League RAMbotics Regional
Where: Ross Middle School
When: Saturday; opening ceremonies and parade of teams, 12:30 p.m.; robot games, 1 to 3:40 p.m.; closing ceremonies and awards, 4 p.m.
HAMILTON — Although it’s still a young program, the Ross Middle School Lego team has “accepted the challenge” of hosting the first FLL RAMbotics Regional Tournament, according to faculty adviser Jennifer Noxsel.
“Last spring, we were given this opportunity to host a tournament because there’s such a growth in Lego teams that they needed more hosts,” Noxsel said. “We will have 12 teams competing from the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.”
Each tournament season has a theme, and this year’s is “Body Forward,” in which teams research a body part, body function or body system, identify a problem and create an innovative solution to heal, repair or improve the body.
Ross will field two teams at the tournament, which they call “Sport for the Mind.”
The Metal Chihuahuas will present their plan to “play away the pain” of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) by playing a game inspired by “Guitar Hero” that allows victims to desensitize themselves from chronic pain. Team members visited Cincinnati Children’s Hospital as part of their research, and will present their solution to hospital staff.
Ross TECHnix have come up with “The Exosuit Project” to help people with degenerative muscular or skeletal diseases, stroke victims, amputees and people with spinal cord injuries.
“Body Forward” is one-third of a team’s tournament score. Another third comes from “robot games,” which the public is invited to observe, getting a team’s Lego robots to perform specific tasks, this year with an emphasis on calibrating light sensors.
The final third will come from each team’s performance in an exercise to test its “Gracious Professionalism,” Noxsel said. This is the first Lego tournament to have an emphasis on this core value, so teams will be under a lot of scrutiny.
“They will go into the judging session and are given an activity to do,” Noxsel said. In previous years, it was to build a house of playing cards or to have the team stand on a tarp and flip it over without getting off of it.
“The task doesn’t really matter because judges are looking at how they work together and interact to solve problems,” she said. “They came up with this after getting feedback from potential employers about what they want from new hires. Of course, they want them to have good science skills, but they are also looking to change the stereotype of the science nerd to have people who know how to work collaboratively.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
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