FAIRMONT, W.Va. — Fifty-one teams of elementary and middle school students will get the opportunity to participate in the 2024 West Virginia FIRST LEGO League state championship this Saturday at Fairmont State University.
FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, was first created in 1989 by American engineer, inventor, and businessman Dean Kamon. And the first competition was started in 1992 by Kamon and another engineer Woodie Flowers.
Todd Ensign, program manager at NASA IV&V Education Resource Center Facility in Fairmont, said that Kamon created the organization to get kids to want to learn about STEM.
“He wanted to make learning STEM fun, and that’s why he created FIRST Robotics,” Ensign said.
Kamon started the competition in 1992 in Parkersburg and then it moved to Wheeling University and that’s where it stayed until 2011, when Fairmont State University held its first competition.
Ensign says that it has just grown in numbers since 2011.
“What’s interesting, in terms of the story, the broader story, that led to the event that were having this Saturday, is that LEGO League grew from about 50 teams to about 100 teams over the course of several years,” he said. “And we moved from a single event to at one point we had nine qualifying events happening across the state at various partners.”
With the growth in number of teams they have also grown the competition’s that they provide, including Vex V5 Robotics Competition, FIRST Tech Challenge, Aerial Drone Competition and more. Since the expansion of these different competitions the number of student engagement has increased to 600 students.
He said the growth was possible because of the help from NASA ERC facility.
Ensign said that at the competition that is happening on Saturday, teams will face four different parts of competition.
The first thing they were tasked with is to build a robot that will participate in a unique challenge.
“They have to build a robot that can drive around a four foot by eight foot field, and pull, pickup, manipulate, lift different Lego interactive elements,” Ensign said.
He also said that the robot will have to be autonomous, or move on it’s own. Teams will get three chances to earn points for each interactive elements, called a mission.
Another thing that will get them points is a team presentation on the robot design process, an annual research project about the issue facing oceans and researching solutions, and they will be evaluated on CORE values. Each of those will be worth 25% of their final score.
Ensign said that three winners will be announced after the competition is over.
“It will be the ones that scored high on the robot performance, they treated each other and everyone else really and worked together as a team, they did a great research project and they presented their information clearly, and the process by which they built and coded their robot was innovative and clearly explained,” he said.
The top winner will be able to go to Houston, Texas in April for the 2025 FIRST Championship. And the other winners will have the opportunity to go to a Invitational Tournament either in Florida, New Jersey or California.
He also said that there will be three more awards given out.
“There is also a trophy given away to the best team in robot design, the best team in research, and the best team in CORE values,” Ensign said.
The NASA ERC facility said that the center is excited to be able to host the event.
“The NASA ERC, that’s our team, were proud to host and manage this event and program and were excited to see what the kids have come up with, which is about both their robot and their research,” Ensign said.
They will also have high school volunteers from Mountain Area Robotics team from Morgantown and Putnam Area Robotic Team from Winfield.
The event will get underway at 8:15 a.m. in the Falcon Center and Engineering Technology Building. Free parking will be available at the campus parking garage. They invite visitors to watch the robot performance between 2-4:30 p.m.
For more information on location and the competition visit the WV Robotic Alliance website here.