31 Jan 2020 FIRST LEGO League Championship awards
Kansas City, Mo. (January 30, 2020)–The Flaming LEGO Lizards, a team of friends from across the KC metro, took home the top honors from the FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) Regional Championship at Hy-Vee Arena on Saturday, Jan. 25.
The competition included nearly 400 students in fourth through eighth grades representing 44 teams from the greater Kansas City region. The teams advanced from a field of nearly 200 teams through five regional qualifier tournaments in November and December 2019. The Flaming LEGO Lizards will advance to the FIRST World Festival competition in Houston this April.
With adult coaches to guide them, FLL teams apply science, engineering and math concepts—plus a big dose of imagination—to develop solutions to real-world challenges. They also design, build and program LEGO MINDSTORMS®-based robots to perform autonomous “missions” on a playing field. Along the way, they develop critical thinking, team-building and presentation skills.
This season’s FIRST® LEGO® League City Shaper Challenge asked teams to consider how to address a problem in their own community.
KC Regional Awards
Overall
1st Place Champion: 45175 Flaming LEGO Lizards
2nd Place Champion: Team 6476 Park Planners
The Global Innovation Solutions Award for exemplary project solutions went to Team 38829 League of Robotic Panthers A. Each FIRST® LEGO® League region nominates one team to move to the next round of competition.
Core Value Awards
The Inspiration Award celebrates a team that displays extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit. The 2020 winner is Team 32823, the Proud Pandas.
The Teamwork Award recognizes a team that accomplishes more together than they could as individuals through shared goals, strong communication, effective problem solving and excellent time management. The award went to Team 45715 NIC Team 3.
The Gracious Professionalism Award recognizes a team whose members show each other and other teams respect at all times. They recognize that both friendly competition and mutual gain are possible on and off the playing field. Team 15919, the STEM Stallions, took home the 2020 award.
Robot Design Awards
In this category, judges look for teams whose work combines robust mechanical design, excellent programming and a sound strategy, resulting in an innovative robot.
Mechanical Design recognizes a team that designs and develops a mechanically sound robot that is durable, efficient and highly capable of performing the challenge missions. This year’s award went to Team 5457, the Meadowmere Mechanical Maniacs from Grandview, Mo.
The Programming Award recognizes a team that uses outstanding programming principles, including clear, concise and reusable code that allows the robot to perform challenge missions autonomously and consistently. The winner is Team 33376, the Trailbots.
The Strategy & Innovation Award recognizes a team that uses solid engineering practices and a well-developed strategy to design and build an innovative, high performing robot. Team 583, the Falconbots Green, captured the 2020 award.
The Robot Performance Award goes to the team whose overall package of robot design, programming, strategy, and teamwork helped it to achieve the competition goal of acquiring more points than any other team. This award went to the Meadowmere Mechanical Maniacs.
Project Awards
The competition includes project presentations to show that individuals can make a difference by researching a problem, then contributing ideas and solutions to real-world issues.
The Research Award goes to the team that uses diverse resources to formulate an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of the problem they identified. The winner is Team 46710, Troop 744.
Innovative Solutions recognizes a solution that is exceptionally well-considered and creative, with good potential to solve the problem researched. Team 38829, the League of Robotic Panthers A, received this year’s award.
The Presentation Award, which recognizes a team that effectively communicates the problem they have identified and their proposed solution to both the judges and other potential supporters, went to Team 45961, the Wookie Cookies.
Judges Award
During the course of competition, the judges may encounter teams whose unique efforts, performance or dynamics merit recognition. Some teams have a story that sets them apart in a noteworthy way. Sometimes a team is so close to winning an award that the judges choose to give special recognition to the team. Judges Awards allow the freedom to recognize remarkable teams that stand out for reasons other than the Core Award categories. The 2020 Judges Award went to Team 46586, the Community Crusaders.
Photos
See team photos and behind-the-scenes action through the photography of Charles Maples.
# # #
About FIRST
Inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology, and engineering (STEM). Kansas City FIRST, the local hosts FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) regional competitions and supports FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) for high school students, FIRST LEGO League (FLL ) for 9 to 14 year olds, and Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL) for 6 to 9 year olds.
About KC STEM Alliance
KC STEM Alliance is a collaborative network of educators, business partners and organizations that inspires interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math careers to generate a robust force of related professionals for our community.