Community Corner
Elementary schoolers from the Sharon Public Schools won the awards in the World and Regional Jr. FLL events
Tuesday, May 14, 2013: A team of 7 children (second/third graders) who study in the Sharon Public Schools recently participated in the JUNIOR FIRST LEGO LEAGUE (Jr. FLL, www.juniorfirstlegoleague.org) program for the year 2012-2013. The program was organized by FIRST to promote Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, and designed to help children (ages 6-9) in nurturing their passion for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) while building life skills such as team building and presentation skills. This year’s project topic was to learn about seniors (project title: Super Seniors). Through this program, children built an understanding of the aging process and how seniors have been experiencing the changes in technology during the last few decades. They brainstormed how current and future technology can help seniors. Finally they gave shape to their imaginations through model building (using Lego building blocks) and a poster presentation.
Out of 3,000+ Jr. FLL teams (involving 18,000+ children), this team was one of the forty (40) teams worldwide that were invited to attend the 2013 World Expo. The World Festival Expo was a four-day event at the Edward Jones Dome on April 24-27, 2013 in St. Louis, MO. In all, more than 10,000 students, ages 6 to 18, participated in the Championship events (covering all levels of robotics programs that FIRST offered) and about 25,000 people joined the event during the opening and award ceremonies.
This team, Robo Rampage (team #2031), was the only Jr. FLL team that represented Massachusetts in this World event. The team “Rob Rampage” won the “Rising Stars” award! The team members were interviewed by the FIRST, Lego Education, and the Universities (University of California Berkeley and others).
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In addition to the world event, the team also attended a regional event on Jr. FLL (Location: Rhode Island, Organizer: Rhode Island School of the Future) covering all the New England States (http://www.risf.net/robotics-park/). There, the team won “The Judges Award” for overall Superiority in Design, Creation, Theme and Presentation.
As part of this program, the team also visited Sharon’s “Council on Aging” in Sharon, MA (http://www.townofsharon.net/public_documents/SharonMA_Aging/index). The children met seniors there, and learned about the programs that COA offers for the seniors. The team interviewed seniors and came to know the activities that the seniors are busy with.
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About the team and project work: Team members are- Abhi, Akhil, Arun, Girish, Pooja, Soumil, and Surya. The elementary schools they attend belong to the Sharon Public Schools District. This team was coached by the parents. The team’s super senior partner was Ms. Barbara Golner, 84, a senior citizen from Sharon. The Team had an opportunity to learn science, technology, and math while building the model with the Lego blocks. The team learned WeDo software (developed by National Instruments and Lego Education) and used it to build different components of their “Advanced Senior House” model. The children enjoyed the challenges they faced while building the model. They chose “Robotics for Elderly Care" as their research item. From online reports and searches, the team understood that there will be an increased need for elderly care in the near future. Their model “Advanced Senior House” has a house with some advanced features addressing senior needs that the team gathered from the interview. These advanced features were modeled to make the senior’s life easier. Some examples are: automatic front door for the house, software (WeDo) controlled elevator, advanced wheelchair, robot that can help a senior in his/her daily life, and an advanced car with a motion sensor.
These children learned about sharing, team building, and “gracious professionalism”, which are some of the core values of the Jr., FLL program.
Team’s website: http://teamroborampage.weebly.com/
The Robo Rampage team acknowledges the support and
encouragements from the Sharon Public School district personnel, principals, and teachers, our senior partner Ms. Barbara Golner; the management personnel at Sharon “Council on Aging”, First’s Regional Director Mr. Steve Cremer, and our friends in Sharon.
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