Winners Announced at Junior FIRST LEGO League Expo

(Kings Park, New York) — On March 3, eighteen teams participated in the 5^th Annual Junior FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League (Jr. FLL) Expo at Longwood High School. The event was presented by School-Business Partnerships of Long Island, Inc. (SBPLI) and the Longwood Central School District. This year, Jr. FLL participants took part in the SUPER SENIORS^SM Challenge.

In the SUPER SENIORS Challenge, children ages 6 to 9 learned about the challenges some senior citizens may have getting around, keeping in touch with friends and family or staying active and fit, and the changes they have experienced in their lifetime. They researched one change the senior experienced and found out what experts are doing to make life better or easier for seniors, and learned about simple machines as they built a model made of LEGO elements with a moving part and created a team Show-Me Poster to represent their findings.

The following teams received these awards (please note that some of the categories had multiple winners but there was no definite order): 

Additional sponsors included Central Islip Public Schools; Brookhaven National Laboratory; FIRST; Sideboard Computers; Farmingdale State College; The Law Office of Jeffrey Stern; Lisa Cohen; Andrew Margolin; the Plainview-Old Bethpage School District; Sir Speedy of Plainview; and Robert Woods of LEGO Education.

Founded by inventor Dean Kamen, FIRST was created to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. First LEGO League is an international program for 9- to 14-year-old children created in a partnership between FIRST and The LEGO Group in 1998 based on their common belief that fun and learning go hand-in-hand, and that an inspired mind can accomplish anything. Each September, FIRST LEGO League announces the annual Challenge to teams, engaging them in authentic scientific research and hands-on robotics design. Using LEGO MINDSTORMS^® technologies and LEGO play materials, children work alongside adult mentors to design, build, and program robots to complete missions based on real-world challenges. After eight intense weeks, the competition season culminates at high-energy, sports-like tournaments.

Rick Ramhap, Jr. FLL Coordinator, said: “We are pleased to coordinate the Long Island Jr. FIRST LEGO League Expo. It is an extension of the FIRST Robotics Competition and the FIRST LEGO League Championship Tournament. Together these programs are opening a world of technology, science, and engineering to so many Long Island students, helping to build our high tech workforce of the future.”

For more information about SBPLI, visit www.sbpli.org.

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School-Business Partnerships of Long Island, Inc. (SBPLI) was founded in 1984 by Fred Breithut with the goal of developing partnerships between local high schools and businessesthat would provide students with practical experience and curriculum development, while helping the business community develop its future workforce. Over 100 partnerships have been formed. In 1999, SBPLI brought the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition to Long Island, in which eight high school teamsparticipated. Since then, the Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competition has grown to 50 teams competing each year. SBPLI also hosts Long Island’s annual FIRST LEGO League Qualifying and Championship Tournaments and the Junior FIRST LEGO League Expo, in which approximately 1,000 elementary and middle school students from Nassau and Suffolk Counties take part each year. For more information, visit www.sbpli.org.

ABOUT FIRST^TM

Accomplished inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST^TM (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology, and engineering. With the support of many of the world’s most well-known companies, the not-for-profit organization hosts the FIRST Robotics Competition and FIRST Tech Challenge for high-school students, FIRST LEGO^® League for children 9-14 years old, and Junior FIRST LEGO League for 6 to 9 year-olds. To learn more about FIRST, go to www.usfirst.org.

ABOUT THE LEGO GROUP

LEGO Systems Inc. (LSI) is the Americas (North America and Latin America) division of The LEGO Group, a privately-held firm based in Billund, Denmark. The LEGO Group is committed to the development of children’s creative and imaginative abilities through high-quality, creatively educational play materials, and its employees are guided by the motto adopted in the 1930s by founder Ole Kirk Christiansen:  “Only the best is good enough.”  For more information, visit www.LEGO.com.