On Saturday January 14th, over 300 students from schools across the district competed in the annual Newark Board of Education FIRST LEGO League Tournament. Students were able to showcase their work in building and programming a robot to complete specific missions with LEGO blocks. The teams also presented research projects based on this year’s “Super Powered” theme, which looked at sources of energy and how participants can solve the ever growing need for energy in the world.
Teams were judged on their innovation project, the success of their robots on the mission field as well as their team spirit, collaboration, and leadership. In a tightly contested event, Lafayette Street School earned the overall event championship, followed closely by Hawkins Street School and Ann Street School. Lafayette Street School will go on to represent the district in a major tournament at Liberty Science Center later this year. Teams across the district took home additional awards for robot design, team spirit, perseverance and excellence in research. Parents, teachers and other members of the school community came out to support the event held at Newark School of Data Science and Information Technology. This was the largest event the FIRST LEGO League teams have competed in and the district is anticipating an even larger turnout at the event in the 2023-2024 season!