Bayport-Blue Point Robotics Team Wins Lego League Championship

The Bayport-Blue Point Robotics Team captured the 1st Place – Champions Award at the 10th Annual SBPLI - First Lego League’s Long Island Regional Championship held at Longwood High School on March 2nd. 

Team Tesla Empire #2878, comprised of seven elementary and middle school students from the Bayport-Blue Point area, competed against the top 40 robotic teams from across Long Island.  Teams invited to the Long Island Regional Championship were selected from a qualifying tournament field of over 120 teams.  FIRST LEGO League Teams compete in the areas of robotic performance, technical design & programming, innovation/research project presentation and a team work challenge.

The FIRST LEGO League is an organization that seeks to promote innovation, science and technology in youth. Using LEGO MINDSTORMS technology, participants program robots to complete themed missions on a gaming field. In addition, teams give presentations that embody the yearly theme and core values.  The theme for this year’s tournament was “Nature’s Fury,” which prompted each team to tie their technology interests into a contemporary issue, and to research and develop an innovative solution to prepare for or respond to a natural disaster.

Inspired by events that affected their coastal community, such as Super Storm Sandy, the Tesla Empire team focused their research on the effects of flooding that may occur during many types of natural disasters.  The children developed an innovative and cost effective solution to protect automobiles during multiple weather conditions.

The Tesla Empire robotics team will be traveling to California to represent the Long Island region and compete against to the top 50 teams in North America at the FIRST LEGO League North American Championship Tournament taking place in May.

Article/photo courtesy of Jonathan Spier