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Children invade campus for LEGO League competition

By Rick Redmond

Posted on Thursday, December 12th, 2002, 12:00 am

Julie Altenhoff

Aaron McCollough and Craig Harrison from Hampden perform one last trial run before their team is judged at the First Lego League Competiton held Sunday at UMaine.

They’ve come a long way baby — from little red bricks to computers with infrared sensors. One of America’s favorite building toys made an appearance at the University of Maine Sunday. The third First Lego League Competition, sponsored by the University of Maine’s AGENT Institute, brought middle school-aged children from around the state together to compete in a robotics tournament showcasing their ingenuity and creativity.

Teams were given an electrical RCX box, a small computer, that contains an infrared sensor for directional movements. Teams then downlaod directional commands to program into their boxes to guide their robots, which were built completely out of Legos.

At the competition, teams were tested on their robot’s ability to complete tasks on playing fields such as bridge repair, home salvaging and community cleanup. All of the tasks complimented this year’s theme, “City Sights.”

Ke Wang, this year’s volunteer coordinator, said he recruited volunteers from every walk of life at the university.

“We have people from undergraduate students to professors volunteering here today,” Wang said. “The response was tremendous from the university. Up until seven hours before work began this morning, I was still receiving calls from people interested in volunteering.”

Roxie Paine, who served as head referee for the competition tables, said she has been volunteering at this event for the past three years.

“Our goal is to get kids interested in math and science,” Paine said.

Top honors went to the team who completed the most tasks on their competition tables in six minutes, thus scoring the most points. Other awards were given for programing, research and design and most team spirit.

The first place Director’s Award went to the “Loose Pieces” project from Owl’s Head Central School. Second place went to “Xpired Milk” from Cascade Brook School.