Mountain Home’s FIRST LEGO League http://www.firstlegoleague.org has announced 20 semi-finalist teams will advance to the Eighth Annual FIRST LEGO League Global Innovation Award http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/fll/global-innovation in California. The Mountain Home RAZORBOTS were selected from entries from more than 20 countries for their outstanding project innovative solution, demonstrating originality while having the potential to add significant value in the world. The RAZORBOTS have invented “Water Quality Monitoring for Remote Locations” for the HYDRO DYNAMICS season, which focuses on improving the human water cycle. The team members will travel to San Jose June 19th through the 21st to present their innovation to expert judges.
The team is working toward raising enough money to get to the finals. The prize is $20,000 to put toward further development of the invention. More information can be found at http://www.mhrazorbots.com .
A GoFundMe account has been established at https://www.gofundme.com/fll-global-innovation-award
FIRST LEGO League is an international program for 9 to 16-year-old children (ages vary by country) created in a partnership between FIRST and the LEGO Group in 1998 to get children excited about science and technology. The program is designed to teach youth career and life skills. Children work alongside adult mentors to design, build, and program autonomous robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS and create an innovative solution to a real-world problem as part of their research project.
All semi-finalists will participate in a two-day, hands-on innovation event at San Jose State University Student Union, which culminates in the awarding of the top prize of $20,000 to continue work on their inventions. Two runners-up will take home $5,000 each.
The FIRST LEGO League Global Innovation Award teams must consider possible barriers to implementation, document the evaluation of their invention, and validate their design with professionals working in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Past winning teams have focused on solving global problems- from a device allowing a toddler with a hand difference to learn to write, to a chemical process to recycle polystyrene into activated charcoal for filtration, to an app that helps blind children learn Braille. Past finalists have brought inventions to market, received patents, and incorporated as businesses.
The FIRST LEGO League Global Innovation Award is designed to encourage and assist teams with the further development of their original and important ideas for solving global issues. Students emerge as strong visionaries and divergent thinkers capable of applying innovative thinking to any problem.
The Global Innovation Award is sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton, John Deere, LEGO Education, PWC, Rockwell Collins, Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and XPRIZE and in collaboration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
For more information, visit http://www.lego.com
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