Students Lego of Their Limits

Congratulations to 198 students in grades 9-12 who competed in the FIRST Lego League competition on Jan. 11 at Ray Middle School in Baldwinsville. Coordinated by the OCM BOCES Model Schools Team, this exciting, all-day event included 23 Lego League teams representing 10 districts. Fixty-six volunteers were also on hand to make sure everything ran smoothly.

In this year's competition, students were challenged to build and program Lego robots to accomplish "missions" across a large board that featured an underwater theme, "Submerged." In addition, students presented research projects, called "Innovation Projects," to a panel of judges about their ideas for preserving underwater resources.

At the end of the day, several teams received awards:

• People of the Peeps (Cazenovia) - Champion's Award
• Big Bad Krill (Cortland) - Robot Design
• Cortland Clown Fish (Cortland) - Core Values
• 20,000K Legos Under the Sea (Cazenovia) - Innovation Project
• Coral Eagles (McGraw) - Engineering Excellence
• Wellwood RoboHornets (Fayetteville Manlius) - Breakthrough
• PG Pirates (ESM) - Motivate

Teams moving on to the Finger Lakes Regional Championship held on February 16 at the Nichols School (1250 Amherst St.) in Buffalo are:

• People of the Peeps
• Big Bad Krill
• Cortland Clown Fish
• 20,000K Legos Under the Sea
• Coral Eagles

Thank you to everyone who made this competition a tremendous success!