February 2008
WISE sponsors second First Lego League TeamThe WISE program continued to sponsor the M Go Blue Bots all-girl First Lego League team and for the first time, sponsored a second all-girl team, M Go Blue Bots II. The teams consist of girls in grades 5-9 with the maximum of 10 on each team. Weekly Sunday afternoon practices at Ums Undergraduate Science Building are led by UM graduate and undergraduate engineering student coaches. The girls learn to build and program Lego Mindstorm robots to complete missions on a board. They are are responsible for researching and presenting a project based on the current year's FLL challenge. The teams them compete against other teams at huge FLL events in the area. This year's FLL challenge was titled, Power Puzzel: Energy Resources - Meeting the Global Demand. The 2007 FLL Challenge research project instructed teams to: select a building in their community and evaluate the energy use; propose solutions to reduce consumption or move toward alternative energy use; share suggestions with the community. M Go Blue Bots I chose the UM Exhibit Museum as a focus for its energy study, and the M Go Blue Bots II chose the Dana Building- UM's "greenest" building on campus. As part of their research projects, they met with UM facilities and building managers, physically inspected the buildings' doorways, windows and other construction elements. They also analyzed seven years of energy use data for each building. Both teams competed in a practice tournament in Flint, Michigan and a regional tournament in East Lansing, Michigan. The M Go Blue Bots I qualified to compete in the State competition in Flint, Michigan, with their sister team, the M Go Blue Bots II cheering them on all the way. Much of the success of the WISE robotics programs are due to the enthusiastic and inspiring UM student coaches, including David Lorch, a biomedical PhD student, Angelique Johnson, an Electrical Engineering PhD student, and Colleen Monahan and Lisa Perez, both third year Aerospace Engineering students. First Lego League competition ended in mid-December, and the WISE team celebrated with a year-end party starting with an awards ceremony for the team members their families and coaches, and ending with an overnight party which featured dancing, videos, guitar hero and silliness.
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