ACTC Hosts FIRST LEGO Tournament December 7 | ACTC

    ACTC Hosts FIRST LEGO Tournament December 7

    Ashland Community and Technical College will host the FIRST LEGO League Regional Tournament December 7 at the Technology Drive Campus. This is the only FIRST LEGO tournament in the FIVCO area of Kentucky, and it is a qualifying event for the Kentucky First Lego League tournament in early 2014.

    Twelve teams, with a total of 97 student members, have registered to compete: Catlettsburg Creater, The Rescue Force and Natures Fury Avenger from Holy Family School, the Rams from Raceland, LEGO Barbarians and LEGO Raiders from Greenup County 4H, Ashland Fury Fighters from Charles Russell and Verity Middle Schools, 4H LEGO Wizards from Carter County, and the 4th, 5th and 6th Grade Gifted teams from Boyd County.

    FIRST LEGO is a robotics program designed to get youth ages nine to 14 excited about science and technology. Founded in 1989, the non-profit organization now has over 20,000 teams in more than 70 countries. The teams work on projects that include building robots and designing solutions to real-world problems.

    This years competition topic is Natures Fury. First Lego Teams are challenged to come up with innovative solutions to help deal with the effects of natural disasters such as storms, floods and earthquakes. The tournament will include a robot game using robots that were designed and constructed to deal with the aftermath of a particular natural disaster.

    ACTC is hosting the tournament to provide skill building opportunities for area youth in science technology, engineer and math as well as in teamwork, critical thinking and problem-solving. Earlier this year, the ACTC Foundation awarded challenge grants to encourage the development of new teams in the area, and this will be the first opportunity for those teams to compete in a tournament.

    The tournament which begins at 9:00 a.m. and ends at approximately 4:00 p.m. is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Karen Coburn, ACTC Manager of External Education, 606.326.2129 or email: Karen.coburn@kctcs.edu.