Teamwork and dedication are what it took for the King's Ridge Christian School Techno Tigers Robotics Team to win the Programming Award at this weekend’s FIRST^® LEGO^® League (FLL) Regional Competition. The team received a trophy to commemorate their achievement after the all-day event on Saturday, Dec. 10.

FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is an international program for 9 to 16 year-old children (9 to 14 in the U.S. and Canada) created in a partnership between FIRST and The LEGO Group in 1998 to get children excited about science and technology – and teach them valuable employment and life skills. Children work alongside adult mentors to design, build, and program autonomous robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS^® technologies and create an innovative solution to a problem as part of their research project. After eight intense weeks, the competition season culminates at high-energy, sports-like tournaments. Like any other organized “sport,” teams also fundraise, create a team identity, and go on field trips. 

Children and their coaches from 24 teams gathered at the event, held at Walton High School in Marietta, GA to celebrate science and technology and present their Biomedical Engineering solutions as part of the FLL “Food Factor™”Challenge. The competition was judged in four areas: project presentation;robot performance; technical design and programming of the robot; and teamwork,
with a consideration of the FLL Core Values.

The Programming Award is presented to the team that utilizes outstanding programming principles, including clear, concise and reusable code that allows their robot to perform challenging missions autonomously and consistently.  The KRCS robot scored the second highest of all the robots at the competition. "I have never seen a team work so well together", states Coach Justin Bishop.  "Their enthusiasm and work ethic made my job as a coach very easy.  The team's drive and determination were evident all season, and I am proud of the way they held up under the pressure of competition".

"This was a great first showing for the team", states coach Kristina Grove, and Larry Chappell. "The three of us could not be more pleased with their performance". The 8 team members in 6^th and 8^thgrade gained valuable experience in research, strategic planning, and public speaking in preparing their robot and research presentation skit for the competition.  The team even had a chance to see robotics and engineering in action when earlier in the year they travelled to the Georgia Tech Research Institute where they met with John Pierson, Principal Research Engineer of the food processing technology building in Atlanta.  This year’s FLL “Food Factor™” Challenge required students to choose one food to research the entire process before it arrives at the dinner table.  Mr. Pierson gave the team a personal tour of the hi-tech facilities where prototypes were being developed to streamline the processing of chicken with the help of robotic arms.

Currently in its twelfth year, FIRST LEGO League anticipates its biggest season ever, with more than 170,000 children in more than 50 countries competing in hundreds of Qualifying Tournaments and Championship Tournaments. Eighty-four teams will also have the opportunity to participate at the FIRST LEGOL eague World Festival, to be held in conjunction with the FIRST Championship, April 27-30, 2011 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis.