Nishant Chaturvedi, an Edgewood campus fifth grader, was one of five local students to be recognized for his skill in robotics at the Southern California LEGOLAND Cup on December 5. The competition was part of the First LEGO League (FLL) 2010 Challenge with the theme “Body Forward”. Nishant’s team, the Bionic Bots, took first place in the “Research” category for the 9-14 age range.
Through the 2010 Body Forward™ Challenge, FLL teams explore
the cutting-edge world of Biomedical Engineering to discover innovative ways to
repair injuries, overcome genetic predispositions, and maximize the body's
potential, with the intended purpose of leading happier and healthier lives. After conducting research on the human body,
the Bionic Bots selected a broken spinal cord as their real world problem. They delved deeper into this complex part of
the human body and created an innovative solution to fix a spinal cord.
Each FLL Challenge has two parts – the Robot Game and the
Project. Teams build and program
an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS technology to score
points in 2.5-minute matches on a themed playing field. For the project component, teams explore an
actual problem that today's scientists and engineers are trying to solve,
develop an innovative solution to that problem (either by creating something
that doesn't exist or building upon something that does), and share their
findings.
Nishant has been exploring his passion for robotics with classes
at Mathobotix in Irvine. The classes are
designed to promote the support and learning of science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
using robotics through a grade level structured curriculum.
Contributed by Danyelle, Marketing