Fairmont, W.Va. – NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program is hosting the FIRST® LEGO League State Tournament at the Fairmont State University Falcon Center on December 7, 2013. The NASA’s IV&V Program Educator Resource Center (ERC) plans and coordinates the state tournament, and helps coordinate scrimmages across the state leading up to this event.
For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST®), founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people, issues an annual ‘challenge’ for each year’s competition. The 2013 NATURE’S FURY Challenge requires the participants to choose a natural disaster to research, and then come up with a project that will help a community prepare for, or recover from, that natural disaster. The teams will also build LEGO robots that perform a range of proscribed activities associated with natural disaster preparation and recovery. The teams are judged in the morning on the Robot Game, the Project and the Core Values elements, followed by an afternoon of timed Robot Game scrimmages to score points completing missions with their robots.
NASA’s IV&V Program will provide the judge advisor, lead judges for the three challenge areas, judges for each category, referees and coordinators for the event. “NASA’s IV&V Program believes the FIRST® LEGO League is an inspirational activity that gets young people engaged in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math activities in a fun, interactive way,” Jeff Northey of NASA’s IV&V Program and Judge Advisor for the FIRST® LEGO League State Tournament said
Members of the public are invited to come between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. on December 7, 2013 at the Fairmont State University Falcon Center to watch the competition and celebrate the hard work and innovation of these innovative teams. To follow the happenings on twitter, look for #WVFLL, and to learn more about FIRST® go to www.first.org
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Jennifer Neptune
Independent Verification and Validation Program, Fairmont, W.Va.
304-367-8262
jennifer.d.neptune@nasa.gov