Southern Wisconsin Times

The School District of Janesville's Parker High School is set to host a regional tournament for the Wisconsin First Lego League (FLL) on November 9, 2024. The event will take place at Parker High School in Janesville and is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Sixteen teams from southern Wisconsin will participate in the competition. Each team consists of up to ten students in grades four through eight, who have been preparing their projects and robots since the start of the school year. During the tournament, these teams will compete for top robotic scores, with judging based on innovation, robot design, and adherence to FLL Core Values.

The FLL Core Values emphasize exploring new skills and ideas, using creativity and persistence to solve problems, applying learned knowledge to improve the world, respecting differences among team members, strengthening through teamwork, and enjoying their endeavors.

This year's theme is "Submerged," focusing on oceans and how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) contributes to ocean exploration or improvement. Teams will be evaluated on their presentations as well as how effectively their robots are programmed to perform specific tasks.

The top nine teams from this regional event will advance to a sectional competition scheduled for December. Success at sectionals could lead them to the state finals in Madison in early February.