A team of students from Hidden Valley Middle School will display their ideas for improving the lives of senior citizens when they compete at the annual Virginia/D.C. FIRST LEGO League robotics championship Saturday, Dec. 8 and Sunday, Dec. 9, at James Madison University in Harrisonburg.

The competition, featuring 96 teams from Virginia and Washington, D.C. — who advanced by winning regional events — will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday at JMU’s Memorial Hall. On Sunday, the tournament will move to Harrisonburg High School and will begin at 7:30 a.m. Teams will be judged on core values, research project presentations, robot designs and a demonstration of how their robot performs.

In addition to elementary and middle schools, LEGO League teams represent boys and girls clubs, churches, home-school groups and other youth organizations.

This year’s teams will face off in the “Senior Solutions” challenge, where their robots will demonstrate ways to solve problems faced by people 60 years old and older. Each team was required to partner with someone 60 or older and then develop a solution that could help that person overcome a difficulty. The solutions can involve using an existing technology in a new way or inventing a new technology.

FIRST LEGO League involves thousands of students, ages 9-16, in team-based competitions focused on robotics and science. The competition provides a fun, educational and challenging way for students to learn more about real-life technical challenges and to develop their own creative solutions.

Virginia/DC FIRST LEGO League sponsors several regional competitions around the state as well as the state final competition in Harrisonburg. For more information about the LEGO League competition, visit www.firstlegoleague.org and www.vadcfll.org/.

– Submitted by Eric Gorton, James Madison University