Inaugural SD FIRST LEGO® League Tournament

The inaugural South Dakota FIRST LEGO® League (SD FLL) Tournament will be held in Sioux Falls on Saturday, January 9^th, at Central Baptist Church located at 3100 W. Ralph Rogers Road.  The tournament will run from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM.  Thirty middle- and grade-school FLL teams from South Dakota and Iowa will test their robot building and programming skills as they compete for trophies in the areas of robot performance on prescribed field missions, technical robot building and programming, teamwork and a research project based on the 2009/10 FLL “Smart Move” theme of transportation.

Four teams from the SD Discovery Center First Lego League of Pierre are entered in the tournament.  The teams include Techno Kids coached by Jon Becker, Stanley County GOLD coached by Brian Hemmelman, Snapping Turtles coached by Scott Darnall and The Zippers coached by Stacy Kolbeck and Steve Mohr.

Four local volunteers will participate as judges for the state tournament;  Chris Stanley, Ray Tracy, Jane Hansen and Kristie Maher.

The teams have been working on their projects and robots since September when the official rules for this year’s competition were released.  The Grand Champion team from the SD FLL Tournament will receive an invitation to participate in the FLL World Festival in Atlanta, GA in April 2010, where 80 teams from all over the world will get together for fun and competition at the Georgia Dome.  More than 140,000, 9-14 year old children in over 50 countries will participate in the FIRST LEGO® League during this 2009/10 season. 

Please come to the SD FLL Tournament on Saturday, January 9^th, and enjoy some “Athletics-for-the-Mind.”

A Lego Robotics workshops will be held at the Georgia Morse Middle School in Pierre.  This 4-week session (Thursday afternoons) begins on Jan. 14 from 3:15 to 5pm.  It is open to any 6-8 grade student.  The workshop is funded by United Way Youth Booster funds so there is no cost to participants.  Those interested can register at the GMMS office by January 12. 

The SD Discovery Center intends to create more teams during 2010.  To keep up on the SD Discovery Center FIRST Lego League, go to www.sd-discovery.com and sign up for the FIRST Lego League e-news.