NASHUA, N.H. (Dec. 13, 2003) * Mindstorms Mayhem, a team of 10 students home schooled from five cities in southern New Hampshire, was named 2003*s BAE Systems FIRST LEGO* League New Hampshire State Tournament champion at the Nashua High School North Campus, Dec 13.
Placing second was the Flying Geeks, Nashua Christian Academy, Nashua, N.H.
FIRST LEGO* League (FLL) is one of the largest science competitions for students throughout the U.S.
Mindstorms Mayhem was among 48 elementary and middle school teams from throughout New Hampshire and Massachusetts providing both a robotic solution and a research presentation to interplanetary mission challenges. *Mission Mars* invited students to explore the Martian landscape, solving problems unique to the Red Planet*s environment.
*The greatest challenge was to learn to work together as a team,* said Ben Streeter, Mayhem robot handler, *Once we did, we found we were good at different things * builders, programming, team spirit and research.*
Other Mindstorms Mayhem students are Melissa Gray, Nathan Gray, Brian Jennings, Ben Krupkin, Jacob Krupkin, David Schunemann, Ben Streeter, Nathan Streeter, Dan Umenhofer and Vickie Umenhofer. Coaches are Ken Streeter, Bill Gray and Christopher Jennings.
FLL, in its fifth season, seeks to encourage an interest in science, math and technology among students, ages 9-14, in a compressed, rapid-paced program. *This year*s challenge was particularly exciting because it made a current event -- NASA*s Mars rover landing next month -- relevant to each participant,* said Linda Lavoie, director for the New Hampshire tournament. *Students gain a broader appreciation of current events because they*re encouraged to recognize the challenges inherent in an event as well as hone their skills to solve those challenges. At the same time, everyone -- students and volunteers -- is having fun.*
In October, more than 49,000 students from throughout the U.S., and 12 other nations accepted the challenge to solve Martian exploration and colonization challenges faced by astronauts and NASA engineers. For the past eight weeks, the 4,200 teams worked on their robotic solutions using LEGO* MINDSTORMS * robotics technology kits; strategizing, then designing, building and testing their solution to solve Martian exploration challenges. For the research element, the teams studied one of the challenge*s missions and developed a research question related to such issues as maneuvering and travel, Martian living conditions, space technology and alliances. They then prepared a presentation to demonstrate how robotics technology can address their question.
In the Mayhem presentation, they discussed the need for energy resources and the practical application of a geothermal power solution, explained Nathan Gray, Mayhem team member. *Solar panels are too hard to keep free of the Martian dust; windmill blades would have to be too large to maintain and hamster power isn*t economical. So geothermal power becomes the obvious and practical resource.*
At the New Hampshire Tournament, a robot*s performance was judged in a 2-1/2 minute round to accomplish certain tasks on an 8-foot by 4-foot tabletop, maneuvering around obstacles and creating alliances with other teams for maximum performance. For Mission Mars, tasks included clearing dust from a solar panel, loading and launching a canister from a MAV launcher, connecting habitation modules, freeing a rover and moving ice cores to base.
Over the last six months, WGBH*s *Zoom* has documented the FLL program and entered a team in the New Hampshire tournament; the five-part series is set to air May 2004 as part of the popular education program.
Team R1 R2 R3 Best
======================= === === === ====
Frozen Vikings 290 327 293 327
Mindstorms Mayhem 276 268 319 319
Team 1744 176 205 319 319
RoboMonkeys 317 256 254 317
Longmeadow Black Riders 223 291 227 291
Rust Rovers 271 193 217 271
NRD 118 246 187 246
Omega Constant 172 168 223 223
Mill Pond Vikings 192 54 98 192
The Matrix 178 129 140 178
Pleiades 119 177 162 177
The Flaming Mars 117 66 141 141
Kwamima 100 113 132 132
Woot! 67 117 66 117
Devobot 97 109 109 109
ALT (Rugrats) 61 98 74 98
The Dorks 70 39 47 70
Team 0818 39 39 41 41
Team 0719 39 39 39 39
Quarterfinals:
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Team 1744 over NRD
Mindstorms Mayhem over Flaming Mars
Frozen Vikings over Pleiades
Rust Rovers over RoboMonkeys
Semifinals:
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Frozen Vikings over Team 1744
Mindstorms Mayhem over Rust Rovers
Finals:
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Mindstorms Mayhem (400) over Frozen Vikings (343)
Some yes and some no.
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