The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) hosts a FIRST LEGO League demonstration on Wednesday, December 10, from 7-9 PM at New England Institute of Technology (Student Center), 2500 Post Road, Warwick, RI.  Admission is free and a light dessert will be served.

Four FLL teams, two teams from Martin Middle School in East Providence and neighborhood teams from both Lincoln and Providence, will demonstrate the robots they've designed for the FIRST LEGO League CLIMATE CONNECTIONS Championship Tournament. Each team will also talk about the research projects they've working on for this year's competition.

Robert Morris of SME will offer a brief history of the FLL in Rhode Island.  Mary Johnson, Co-Operational Partner for the RI FLL, will talk about this year's competition and how folks can help get kids excited about engineering, science and technology with the FLL.

Each team has been working since October on the CLIMATE CONNECTIONS Challenge, building a robot from a LEGO Mindstorms NXT or RCX kit. In competition, the robots have 2.5 minutes to earn points by completing missions on a game board related to the CLIMATE theme. For example, this year's robots will: construct and test levees, extract an ice core sample, and insulate a house. (More detail here: http://firstlegoleague.org/community/fll/game.aspx)

They've also been learning about Rhode Island's climate, identifying a problem related to the climate, and proposing an innovative solution to that problem. (More detail: http://firstlegoleague.org/community/fll/project.aspx)

Forty-eight teams will compete in Rhode Island's CLIMATE CONNECTIONS Championship tournament, hosted by Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI, on January 10, 2009 from Noon to 4 PM.

The FIRST LEGO League is a global program designed to get kids excited about science and technology. Geared for ages 9-14 (up to 16 outside of the U.S. and Canada), FLL utilizes theme-based Challenges to engage kids in research, problem solving, and engineering. The cornerstones of the program are its Core Values, which emphasize contributions of others, friendly sportsmanship, learning, and community involvement.