“UNEARTHED” is the theme for this year’s FIRST LEGO League BC/Yukon Territory Championship and Festival being held at Meadowridge School this Sunday, March 8.
More than 500 people are expected at the event where 32 teams will be competing in the robotics tournament from across the province and territory.
Four teams from Maple Ridge will be taking part – the Meadowridge Circuit Breakers; Meadowridge Tech-o Terrors; The Meadowridge Royal NPC; and the Meadowridge Mission Jellycat.
Every year FIRST LEGO League releases a new challenge based on a real-world, scientific theme.
“UNEARTHED” is a robot game that takes the teams on an archaeological adventure. Teams have to explore a dig site, carefully excavating artifacts hidden beneath layers of rock and soil, and uncovering clues that reveal stories of past civilizations.
As teams journey farther into the dig site, they will encounter more challenging terrain, fragile ruins, and delicate artifacts that require precision to retrieve with damaging them.
They will also be decoding mysteries of the artifacts they find.
Teams had to have a minimum of two members and up to a maximum of ten students.
Each team’s performance will be evaluated based on four equally weighted components, each accounting for 25 per cent of their total score: their robot design; innovation project work; their robot’s performance; and core values in all parts of their work.
During judging, teams will present their innovation project and robot design work. Judges will then ask the teams questions to help them score the team’s progress according to the rubrics, then the judges will give positive and constructive feedback to each team.
Judges will be looking to see how teams used teamwork, discovery, inclusion, innovation, impact, and fun in all aspects of the students’ work.
The robot game will require creativity, strategy, and teamwork.
Over the season, each team had to develop a mission strategy to determine which missions their team want to attempt and what attachments and programming they would need for that mission.
Then they designed and programmed a robot to complete the missions.
During each 2.5-minute match on Sunday, robots must start from one of the launch areas, and then teams earn points as missions and tasks are completed.
Teams will receive scores from the judges and referees.
Awards will be handed out in all areas.
For the event, each team is assigned a Pit area where they will spend most of their time working on their robots and programming. Here they will also display their robot and information about their innovation project.
The FIRST LEGO League Challenge BC/Yukon Championship runs from 7:40 a.m. to 5:45 P.m. at Meadowridge School, 12224 240th Street, Maple Ridge.
Opening ceremony will take place at 10:15 a.m. and spectators are welcome to watch the robot games.
Seven teams from this event will advance to international tournaments.