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We won the Third Place Championship Award! at the
2006 Northern California FLL Championship Tournament!
Ok, so we were thrilled when we won Best Mechanical Design award at the Sacramento Area Qualifying Tournament in December 2006. Because of that award we earned a spot at the Northern California State Finals in San Jose on Saturday January 20th 2007

So imagine what we felt like after going to San Jose, being at the competition all day, and then listening as all the awards (there were at least 20 total) were called off until only the top three were left. And then they said (something like): "The third place Championship Award goes to a team that had been noted all day by judges in all categories, they appeared on a local radio station, wrote their own website, and even handed out flyers. This team demonstrated excellent teamwork and showed a real understanding of Gracious Professionalism - The award goes to The Lego Guards".

To say we were ecstatic would be an understatement!
The competition is judged in four categories: Teamwork, Robot Design, Research Presentation, and Robot Performance. The Championship awards are the only awards based equally on all four categories, and (with a very limited exception) a team is only eligible to receive one award.

The Lego Guards are the Place County Office of Education - Home Study Program's Lego Robotics Club. This club is part of the FIRST Lego League that holds competitions throughout the world for students from ages 9 to 14.

Each year FIRST issues a set of challenges that a robot must accomplish. The team must design, build, and program the robot to accomplish these tasks using sensors, motors, gearing, general engineering principles, software, computers, etc. The robot is tested at the competition in a series of timed trials to see how well it accomplishes all of the mission objectives. In addition, the team has a design review session with engineers to discuss what they built and how they built it.

In addition to the robotic isssues, these challenges are based on a specific theme, last year it was the ocean, this year it is Nanotechnology. The team must also research the subject and prepare a project based on that topic. This project will be presented to another panel during the competition also. This panel reviews the project, the presentation, the teamwork, etc.

All of this happens very quickly. The missions are issued in Mid September and the contest is early December, typically that means that they have 10 to 12 weeks total to accomplish their goals.

More on the website

  • To learn about the team, and the members on it, click here
  • To learn about the project, and the research and solution that the team has come up with, click here
  • To learn about the robot, and the missions that the robot is supposed to solve, click here
  • To learn about our sponsors (these are the people that have donated their time and money to help the team get to the competition) click here