Iron Mountain is receiving a grant to start FIRST Robotics programs for our K-12 students. We are very excited to offer this amazing program to all of our students. The particulars of each program are as follows:
The First Lego League Jr. Program is available to all k-3 students. This program uses the Lego Wedo 2.0 kits to help explore real world problems. This year, the theme is Aqua Adventure. Students will investigate the many ways we use water, explore the problems associated with our water usage, and attempt to solve one of those problems using the engineering design process and teamwork. Fundraising is underway to bring some of these Lego Wedo kits into our classrooms at North Elementary. This team meets for less than an hour for eight weeks. The program culminates with a local expo where students show off their “Show Me Poster” that details their journey through this season’s tasks. There is no travel required for this team, but parents and volunteers would be appreciated. This program will kick off in December
The First Lego League is the next step in the progression of this program. This program is created for students in 4th-6th grade, but if your child is really proficient in Math/logic/or computer science, he or she is welcome to join this team in third grade. Members of this team will travel to one competition event in the UP. The theme this year is much like that of Aqua Adventure, but FLL’s HydroDynamics challenge requires students to program their Lego Mindstorms robot to complete challenges in competition.
The Middle School Robotics Program is open to sixth through eighth graders. The First Tech Challenge moves away from legos and graduates to the use of Java and Blocky to program the robot, and Tetrix and REV products are used for building components. There is one travel event for this team scheduled for December 2 in Houghton. Not all team members need to travel with the team.
The High School Robotics Program is completely under wraps until the season begins. We are attending a season kick-off party in Houghton on January 6. Here we will pick up our challenge materials, look at the playing field, ask questions of veteran teams, and make a plan for our high school season.
Additional travel for any of these teams is optional and based on the performance of the teams at the Regional Qualifier.
We are in desperate need of adults to help man practices. Mentors and volunteers need not be experts in any area of robotics, they just need to be the grown up in the room. The motto of the FIRST robotics is that the team does the work.
We hope to see you and your family involved in this amazing program. FIRST robotics schools that run the progression of K-12 programs gives students an edge in qualification for STEM-based scholarships: Iron Mountain is one of only two rookie teams in the state running all four programs, and THE ONLY TEAM in the UP. We need Mountaineers to help keep this running for our future grads.
Please send any questions to robots@imschools.org.
Sincerely,
Amanda Gibbons
FIRST Grant Coordinator IMPS