Nanotechnology challenge from FIRST

Staff -- Control Engineering, 11/1/2006

Volunteers are recognized as an integral and vital part of the way in which young people connect to the real world, and volunteering to promote science can be particularly rewarding. Volunteers are helping the biggest-ever FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League (FLL) season with the unveiling of the 2006 Nano Quest Challenge. FLL is an international program for 9- to 14-year-old children created in a partnership between FIRST and The Lego Group in 1998. Each September, FLL announces the annual challenge, which engages children in authentic scientific research and hands-on robotics design. Using Lego Mindstorms and Lego play materials, children work alongside adult mentors to design, build, and program robots to solve real-world challenges. After eight intense weeks, the competition season culminates at high-energy, sports-like, team-based tournaments.

Inventor Dean Kamen devised the FIRST concept in 1989 to spark young people’s interest in science and technology. For 2006, Nano Quest presents nanotechnology in understandable terms, highlighting the many diverse and positive ways it promises to enhance or revolutionize existing technologies to solve problems and invent things never thought possible. Teams of children will use robotics to explore the amazing solutions nanotechnology can make possible.

FIRST collaborated with the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Nano Science & Technology and the Cornell University Nanobiotechnology Center to help shape a theme and challenge missions that reflect real issues in traditional sciences at the molecular level.

Volunteers are at the heart of the FIRST program. For the 2005/06 FIRST season, more than 45,000 volunteers contributed in areas including mentorship, event management, recruitment, and team management. Mentors benefit from renewed inspiration and a reminder as to why they chose science, technology, engineering, or math as a career. Interested engineers and scientists can get more FIRST information on the Websites listed below.

www.usfirst.org www.firstlegoleague.org