Contact:

Source: Bruce Schafer, Director, OUS Industry Affairs; Office: 503-725-2915; Cell: 503-332-4666
Contact: Cathy Swider, Project Administrator, OUS; Office: 503-725-2920; Cell: 971-219-1020

Portland, OR, January 28, 2010: The Oregon University System (OUS) is pleased to announce that 18 Portland teams were awarded for their ingenuity at the Intel Oregon FIRST LEGO League 2009 Championship Tournaments, presented by Rockwell Collins on January 16-17, 2010 at Liberty High School in Hillsboro. Teams from Portland took home awards for robot design, performance, research, and teamwork.

The statewide competition brought together 120 winning teams to compete with their custom-made robots in two days of competition focused on transportation, or “Smart Moves.” In December 2009, 320 teams and more than 2,000 students participated in qualifying tournaments in Oregon and SW Washington, and the top-performing 30% from these events participated in this past weekend’s championships. 

First place in the Intel Champion’s Award went to “Nanites” from Access Academy and West Sylvan. This is the most prestigious award of the competition and goes to the team who is strongest in the top 4 categories: robot design, robot performance, the research project, and teamwork. The “Girls Go Green” team took first place in the Tech America Young Team Award, which is like the Champion’s Award except that it is restricted to teams made up of children 11 years old and younger. In addition, “Untitled Geniuses” from the Forest Heights neighborhood won first place in the Rockwell Collins Robot Performance Award, “Access Academy Lego-Magicians” from Access Academy took first place in the Bonneville Power Administration Project Award, and M&M CARS from the Mt. Tabor neighborhood won first place in the PH Tech Teamwork Award.

Oregon Robotics Tournament & Outreach Program (ORTOP) offers the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) pre-engineering program to help young students begin exploring technical careers at an early age to meet high-tech industry and economic needs. Oregon technology corporations and industry associations collaborate with the OUS, hundreds of volunteers, and major youth organizations to implement the program. Oregon boasts the largest participation per capita in FIRST LEGO Robotics programs in the nation. This weekend’s tournaments showed a great diversity of teams, including girls and boys from home-schools, public schools, private schools, and communities from rural and urban areas across the state and surrounding region.

”Intel enthusiastically supports the FIRST LEGO League program because we are convinced that it stimulates continuing interest in math and science among young people, and talent in those areas is critical to the future success of Intel, Oregon and the national economy,” said Jill Eiland, Northwest region corporate affairs manager for Intel Corporation, the title sponsor of the event.

Each year FLL defines a challenge that drives team activities. In this year's Smart Moves challenge, the 2008 FIRST LEGO League teams embarked on an exploration of transportation, researching how people, places, goods, and services travel in the safest, most streamlined ways possible. Each team researches one mode of transportation, identifying its challenges and possible technical solutions Each team is made up of students ages 9-14 who are given about 12 weeks to prepare for the tournament, including construction, design, and programming of the robot, and completion of the required scientific research. The teams used off-the-shelf LEGO robotics kits to construct ingenious working robots, which complete as many missions as possible on a 4-foot by 8-foot playing field. The teams also present research projects addressing modes of transportation, discuss technical aspects of their research with judges, and show their ever-important teamwork skills. The weekend tournaments were valuable not only for the teams participants, but also for families who came to watch and admire the ingenious robots built and programmed by the top 9-14 year olds, and to participate in fun hands-on robotics activities for viewers sponsored by Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). 

Bruce Schafer, director of industry affairs for OUS, said, “Many congratulations to the winning teams and all participating teams in this year’s tournament, who have clearly shown us they will be tomorrow’s engineers and innovators. Also, many thanks to Intel and all of our corporate and community sponsors and volunteers who are integral to supporting this valuable and rewarding educational program.”

ORTOP thanks its generous sponsors for this event, including Intel Oregon, the title sponsor; Rockwell Collins, the presenting sponsor; RadiSys and TechAmerica, platinum sponsors; Bonneville Power Administration and Performance Health Technology, gold sponsors;  ESCO, IBM, and ONAMI (Oregon Nanoscience & Microtechnologies Institute), silver sponsors; as well as all its supporting community sponsors and volunteers.  This year 20% of our teams received a scholarship to help them get started or to continue their participation. The $25,000 in scholarships was funded by our sponsors, and several scholarships were made possible by a special grant from the MJ Murdock Charitable Trust.

For more information on the program go to: www.ortop.org.

Oregon University System (OUS) comprises seven distinguished public universities, reaching more than one million people each year through on-campus classes, statewide public services and lifelong learning. For additional information, go to www.ous.edu.

The Intel Champion's Award is the most prestigious of the awards. It encompasses the aspects of the Robot Design Award, the Robot Performance Award, the Project Award, and the Teamwork Award.  All teams are eligible to receive a Champion’s Award.

The TECH AMERICA Young Team Award is like the Champion’s Award except that it is restricted to teams made up of children 11 years old and younger on January 1, 2009.

The Rookie Team Award is like the Champion’s Award except that it is restricted to teams that have never participated in an FLL tournament before.

The Rockwell Collins Robot Performance Award is based on the number of points the team's robot achieves in the performance rounds on the competitive field during the tournament.

Bonneville Power Administration Project Award
The Project Award is presented to the team whose quality research, innovative solutions and creative presentation best reflect an in-depth understanding of the various scientific disciplines and issues involved with the Challenge Project. Teams that do not demonstrate completion of all three Project elements will not eligible for a Project Award or a Champion’s Award.

The PH Tech Teamwork Award is given to the team that best demonstrates extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit, exceptional partnership, and the utmost respect to their own teammates, and in their support and encouragement of fellow teams. The team presented this trophy demonstrates confidence, energy, enthusiasm, problem solving skills, respect of others, and strong team interaction and group dynamics.

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