Danfoss sponsors future engineers at the FIRST Lego League World Festival  

On April 12^th and 13^th the NXT Generation from Nordborg Denmark joined 93 other teams from around the world at the FIRST Lego League (FLL) World Festival.  Future engineers along with their coaches, parents, and spectators packed the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, for the competition.

This year’s theme, Nano Quest, challenged the teams to explore a new frontier that impacts every facet of society, from medicine to computers to the environment.  Each team selected and studied a project involving Nano Technology, which is the same as working with materials on the atomic or molecular level.  Besides the technology challenge, the teams also had to build a Lego robot and program it to autonomously solve a number of challenges within a 2½ minute time frame.  A perfect run by the robot scores 400 points for the team. 

Lots of hard work went into the competition. From the time FLL unveiled this year’s challenge in September until the first local competition takes place, the team had only 8 weeks to complete their challenge presentations and build and program their robot.  The NXT Generation team tackled the challenge of manufacturing Carbon Nano tubes for a future space elevator. In the not too distant future, scientists envision transport to outer space by means of a space elevator rather than rockets or space shuttles. To make this work, scientists will need to develop a material that is stronger but lighter than steel. These are the properties of carbon nanotubes, which are nanometer scaled wire-like structures composed of carbon.

The first competition on the road to Atlanta was the local tournament held in Nordborg last November.  The NXT Generation team won 7 out of a total of 14 awards, including the most prestigious Champion award. Winning this award qualified the team for the Scandinavian FLL Championship where only the best teams compete against other teams from Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Faro Island, Iceland and Denmark. The Scandinavian Championship took place in early December and here the team qualified to participate in the World Festival in Atlanta.

For the past several months, the team refined their presentations and robot performance in order to be ready to meet the absolute best teams in the world. Because all presentations have to be performed in English, the necessary translations had to be made and the youngsters had to practice their English skills.

The NXT team included ten young people and their three coaches, two of whom work for Danfoss in Nordborg.  During the two day event the team competed in Robot Performance, Innovativeness, Teamwork, and Robot Programming.  They also had to present their Nano Quest project. All disciplines had to be presented in front of a panel of judges, who scored each team’s performance. The NXT Generation team scored especially well in the robot performance discipline, earning them a 3^rd place Robot Performance award.

As you can imagine, it gets very expensive to participate in the local, regional, and world competition levels. Each team member is responsible for his or her costs.  Thanks to Danfoss sponsorship, cost was not a burden and the team was able to participate in this unforgettable experience.

You can read more about the NXT Generation team on www.nxtgeneration.dk, press the British flag for the English translation. Who knows?  Maybe someday we’ll be sending Danfoss parts to outer space via an elevator designed by one of the NXT team members.

Thanks to Ejner Kobberø Andersen, who not only works for Danfoss but was also one of the team coaches, for this article.

This article is a re-print from Danfoss FRONTLINE. A monthly in-house newsletter issued by Danfoss Inc. in Baltimore USA. Editor Denise Mason. Copyright 2007, Attention reader: All information in this article is copyrighted. Please reference your source.
 

What is FIRST Lego League?

FIRST Lego League is a technology competition for children ages 10 to 16. FIRST is a non-profit organization based in the U.S. that, among other technology tournaments, also organizes the FLL tournaments.  Guided by adult mentors and using their own imaginations, approximately 90,000 participants compete in the FLL tournaments around the world annually. 

Every year a new technology challenge is unveiled in September.  The 2007 challenge is called “Power Puzzle” and is about energy resources and meeting the global demand. It will be about how energy production and consumption choices affect the planet and our quality of life today, tomorrow, and for future generations. You can read more about FLL and how to sign up your own team at www.firstlegoleague.org.
 

Did you know? 

The name ‘LEGO’ is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. This is Lego’s  ideal.

The LEGO Group was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen. The Company has passed from father to son and is now owned by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, a grandchild of the founder.

It has come a long way over the past 70 years - from a small carpenter’s workshop to a modern, global enterprise that is now, in terms of sales, the world’s sixth-largest manufacturer of toys.