From starting their judging sessions at 8:00 a.m. to competing in front of 1000s of people, words cannot describe how proud I am of my Grade 6/7s. It is exhilarating to realize how much they have changed from September and how far they come in such a short period of time.
Ranging only between the ages of 11 and 13, the amount that they have accomplish as a team is beyond exceptional.
As their coach/mentor I can simply say, “Remember to remain cool, breath and just keep going.” But it was the six of them that carried through till the end. Although we did not make it to nationals, we are not done.
Richland Huskies have been chosen as one of the top 7 teams (out of 40 teams) to compete for the Ontario regional FIRST LEGO League Global Innovation Award. This award has been designed to encourage and assist teams to further develop their innovative solutions to real-world problems. As one of the top 7 teams from the East Ontario Championships, we have been ranked by all of the judges in the Innovation portion of the project rubric. In order to compete for this recognition, they will have to compete at the Ontario Innovation Celebration that is taking place on Saturday February 27th.
The focus of the FLL Ontario Innovation Celebration is to bring 18 of the most innovative solutions (from all across Ontario) to this year’s Trash Trek theme together in one location, to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges who will then select the two most innovative solutions which will then represent Ontario in the Global Innovation Award competition. The winner of which will receive $20,000 to make their innovation a reality. Not only that, but we also walked away with the Innovative Solution Award. This award recognizes a team’s solution that is exceptionally well-considered and creative, with good potential to solve the problem researched.
“FIRST” in First LEGO League stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Their mission is to inspire young people to pursue further studies and careers in the fields of science, technology and engineering. Their vision is of a world which celebrates success in science, technology and engineering and in which young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes. FIRST has done just that. They have inspired our children to recognize a real-world problem that is existent in today’s society. They have inspired our children to go above and beyond to establish an applicable solution.
When the team was asked why wastewater treatment facilities should consider their solution by one of the judges, they have learned to not only consider the present situation but to make connections to that of the future.
“Our solution will create more jobs for scientists and engineers. Wastewater treatment facilities can hire these people to monitor our YP1 tanks to make sure we have the correct amount of bacteria.”
