On Sunday, December 14, Westford School's three FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams traveled to Norwich University for the FLL Central Qualifier. The all-day event featured 20 teams, all looking to earn a spot at the Vermont FLL State Championships presented by GlobalFoundries.
This year's season is themed around archaeology (Unearthed).
The day involved a seemingly limitless amount of energy and fun as teams put their LEGO robots to the test in the Robot Game. Students were tasked to solve as many missions as possible in two minutes and 30 seconds with their autonomously controlled robot. This involved several months of design, mechanical engineering, coding, strategy planning, and debugging.
Equally engaging were the innovation projects, where teams explored topics in archaeology, identified a problem, and then engaged in the engineering design process to invent and prototype a solution. Teams had invention prototypes on display, with demos of the impact that they could have.
Congratulations to our Westford teams for an amazing day of sharing their passion. Two teams are advancing to State Championships (Pandasaurus Rex and Magical Banana Pandas), with one earning a trophy for a top-three finish! This is a very special recognition, especially given that Westford students are all in fourth or fifth grade (with most in their first year), competing in a field of teams from grades 4-8.
FLL has grown to over 80 teams in Vermont. Teams competed in one of four qualifiers throughout the state in hopes of securing a berth to the Vermont State Championships held on Saturday, January 17, at GlobalFoundries in Essex Junction. The event is free and open to the public. Interested in supporting FIRST in Vermont? Learn more at firstinvermont.org