Interested fourth and fifth grade students participated in a Robotics Club at Lower Salford from August to January. The club met twice a week and was coached by parent and teacher volunteers. The children worked in teams to build and program autonomous robots to compete at a FIRST LEGO League tournament in Delaware.
In addition to building and programming LEGO MINDSTORMS robots, the students were asked to research a real-world scientific topic based on food safety. The children chose to study milk as it relates to ice cream. For the first stage of their research, they studied cow health and milk collection, as well as the storage, transportation and pasteurization of milk. They used Internet resources as well as face-to-face interviews with Farmer Knechel, of Homestead Dairy Farm in Harleysville. For the second stage of their research, the students learned about milk safety as it relates to the production of ice cream. They interviewed Freddy, the owner of Freddy Hill Farms, and took a tour of their ice cream production facility.
The three teams LEGO Magic, Robo-Rockers, and BioFalcon presented their research at the FIRST LEGO League robotics tournament in Wilmington, Delaware. They competed against other teams with their autonomous robots, and answered programming and engineering questions posed by volunteer judges. The BioFalcon team won a special judge's award reserved for a team that demonstrates the true spirit of FIRST LEGO League. Their gracious professionalism and demonstration of core values was recognized at the tournament's awards ceremony.
16,762 teams competed worldwide last year.
For more information on FIRST LEGO LEAGUE visit: www.firstlegoleague.com
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