FIRST Lego League is an international organization "created to get kids excited about science and technology," according to its web site. The league holds annual qualifying and championship competitions, each with a theme. This year's theme, "Climate Connections," focused on past, present and future global climate conditions.
The competition was divided into two sections -- the "Project," in which teams were assigned a challenge relating to the theme and then created a solution to present to judges, and the "Robot Game," in which students built autonomous robots to perform specific challenges. This year's robot tasks included saving a Lego polar bear by returning it to the Arctic, turning off the lights in a house and collecting and burying balls of carbon dioxide.
The directors of the Dartmouth Lego League, Caitlin Johnson '10 and Phil Wagner '09, decided to host a FIRST Lego League tournament at Thayer because previously the closest tournaments took place in southern New Hampshire.
"Everything went really well, I was kind of amazed," Johnson said of Saturday's competition. "I had a blast every minute of the day."
Johnson credited the volunteers, judges and participants themselves with helping the event to run smoothly, adding that she was particularly impressed by the middle school competitors.
"It's amazing to see what they come up with -- it blows my mind," she said. "It's easy to underestimate their knowledge about technology. They build robots that I, as an engineer, couldn't build."
Annie Psomas, an eighth-grade student at Richmond Middle School in Hanover who participate as a member of team Ur-Cranium, said the experience helped teach her "how to be a good sport and work on a team."
Another participant, seventh-grade student Karthik Gomathinayagam, said he enjoyed "knowing that I could count on my teammates for research and help."
"I'm looking to be an engineer when I grow up so this is a great thing to do to achieve that goal," Gomathinayagam said.
According to Johnson, FIRST Lego League teams provide students with a realistic view of the teamwork involved in careers in science and engineering. She added that "science education in schools now is not experiential," which she thinks puts students at a disadvantage.
The Dartmouth Lego League currently has 11 student mentors working at seven schools in the Upper Valley.
