Pennekamp FIRST LEGO League Event
Pennekamp's FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League class offered as part of the STAR (Science, Theatre, Arts & Recreation) after school enrichment program has been hard at work on this year's challenge, Mission Mars, under the direction of Gail Hayes, Pennekamp Technology Specialist.
To culminate the class, Pennekamp's three teams, the Pennekamp Martians, the Crater Skaters and the Mars Martians competed against the Eagles, Dragons, and Bears of Roosevelt School in Lawndale. Roosevelt Coach Tanya Manabat and Pennekamp Coach Gail Hayes served as the referees and judges.
M.C. David Speiser did a tremendous job hosting the event and kept everything on schedule. In each of the three rounds, students had 15 minutes to practice and then two and a half minutes to send their LEGO robots through a series of tasks including deploying a ramp and exiting the home base, clearing a solar panel of debris, launching a canister, connecting habitation modules, freeing a stranded Mars Rover, completing an alliance habitation module, transporting ice cores to home base, moving boulders into a launch area and proving vehicle ability by passing an all terrain vehicle test.
Students made last minute adjustments to their robots.
And then the competition began. There were many anxious moments...
...but all the hours of building, programming and practice paid off as each robot ran through the course.
Congratulations to all of the participants and the two coaches for a job well done!
Team awards and point totals are available on the awards page.