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Mar. 3, 2011
by Arlene Lantz
The NeXT GEN Southern Middle School FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Team earned top honors at the Feb. 26 Maryland State FLL Championship held at the University of Maryland Baltimore Campus. The team is now eligible to attend the FLL World Festival in St. Louis, Mo., in April.
To earn the Champion’s Award, NeXT GEN placed in the top in all judging areas out of the 64 teams competing from across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. The group excelled at the robot missions on the table, did an excellent research presentation on concussions, convinced the judges they had a great mechanical design, and pulled it all together with their teamwork. The students from Southern Middle School have practiced weekly since September at Swan Meadow School.
At the FLL World Festival, the students will meet and work with teams from all over the world. They will be competing with the best of the best teams. The team members will continue to practice to improve their table performance and technical presentation, continue their research on their innovative “Brain Freeze” idea to detect concussions, further develop their programming skills, and build important teamwork skills.
The team extends thanks to the Garrett County Board of Education, Dr. Teets, FRC Team 1629, Dr. Buczynski, Dr. Domenick, Tammy Ashby, Eric Tribbey, Adele Naylor, Jason Jobe, Kendra Todd, Coach Don Stemple, Coach Dave McLaughlin, the Aurora Lions Club, and Swan Meadow School for their support to the team.
