www.roanoke.com

On November 6, ACME Robotics, won the Champion’s and First Place Robot Performance Awards, at the FIRST LEGO League Regional Tournament in Lynchburg, the largest regional tournament in the state.  ACME Robotics will now advance to the State Championship Tournament, to be held on December 4th and 5th at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA.

ACME Robotics, a homeschool team, consists of David Norton of Daleville, Andrew Norton of Daleville, James Depret-Guillaume of Salem, and Ian Pierce of Salem.  The team has been working on their robot since September 3, when FIRST LEGO League released the Challenge.  Andrew, the oldest team member, is ageing out of FIRST LEGO League this year; however, he plans to participate in other robotics competitions through high school.  The team’s coaches, Patrick and Cari Norton, are in their fifth year of coaching robotics teams.  For more information on ACME Robotics and their achievements, visit their website www.RoboDesigners.com, created and maintained by Andrew Norton.

FIRST LEGO League is a worldwide organization that encourages children ages 9-14 to become interested in science and technology through competition.  Teams build and program robots using the LEGO Mindstorms NXT to score points by completing various missions.  Teams also prepare a research presentation within a specified topic; this year the topic was biomedical engineering.  All the preparation leads up to the tournament day, when teams do their best and demonstrate what they learned.  With FIRST LEGO League, not only do kids learn STEM skills, but also learn problem solving, time management, teamwork, and public speaking skills.  There are over 17,000 teams worldwide, of which 512 are in Virginia and DC.

Submitted by David Norton