Team 8878, Gears of Fear, from Hazelwood Southeast Middle School, will join three other robotics teams from Eastern Missouri in Jefferson City, where they will compete against four robotics teams from western Missouri in the third annual FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) Governor’s Cup on February 16.
The competition will take place in the Capitol Rotunda from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. In previous years, teams made arrangements to meet their state senators and representatives by contacting them in advance and many legislators attended the actual competition to learn more about FLL and the opportunities it provides students. This year, Gears of Fear team members invited their senator and representatives to attend the competition.
“Learning about robotics helps us get ready for a career in engineering and programming,” said Logan Ploudre, a seventh grade student. “It also helps us learn how to work with others.”
“We watched a news clip on President Obama’s ‘Educate to Innovate’ campaign,” said classmate Keelen Jones. “It talks about helping kids boost their skills in science and math by inventing and using technology. The
news clip showed kids at the White House showing off their inventions. We get to go to the state Capitol to show off our robots. Robotics helps us figure out how to problem-solve when programming the robots. If there’s a problem, we make it better or fix it. Robotics helps us to have the same goals as ‘Educate to Innovate.’ We are learning a lot.”
Teams will need to bring their robots, extra parts and research boards to share and swag, if available. There are no judges at this event, just robot performances. The teams will play the best of two or three rounds (depending on time) and promote FLL in Jefferson City. The winning team will receive a trophy.