This year, NAVWAR is participating in four different FIRST leagues: FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Explore for ages six to ten, FLL Challenge for ages nine to 14, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) for ages 12 to 18 and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) for ages 14 to 18.
NAVWAR supports local FIRST tournaments by hosting informational workshops about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach, promoting volunteer opportunities to employees and providing training to volunteering judges and referees at FIRST tournaments. In addition, NAVWAR co-hosts their own FLL Challenge tournament every year with FRC team #2543 ‘TitanBot’ at Eastlake High School (EHS), where an average of 60 NAVWAR and NWIC Pacific volunteers help judge or referee games and provide cool Navy demonstrations on-site.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, NAVWAR won’t be hosting their own tournament this year, but will still be supporting local tournaments with LEGO model building sessions. An estimated 48 NAVWAR and NWIC Pacific volunteers built around 150 LEGO models and robot obstacles that will be used at upcoming local FLL Challenge tournaments. With no build experience required, this was a fun way for employees to get out of the office and get involved with STEM outreach during their lunch break.
FLL Challenge is a world-wide program that exposes students ages nine to 14 to real-world engineering challenges and software programming techniques through the creation of LEGO robots. The teams compete in four areas: core values (teamwork), research project, robot design/programming and the robot game.
The theme for this year’s FLL Challenge competition is “Cargo Connect,” where teams will re-imagine faster, more reliable, inclusive and sustainable transportation innovations that better connect and grow economies around the world. FIRST teams will address today’s global challenges related to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #9, focused on building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation. The competition will consist of 16 missions the robotics team may choose to attempt in each 2 ½ minute robot match. Only the score from the best of three matches will be counted. This year’s local FLL Challenge tournaments will vary from hybrid in-person to fully virtual, with 14 NAVWAR teams participating in the competition.
STEM robotics outreach coordinators, Brian Williams and Wanda Curtis, have been the lead organizers for local NAVWAR/NWIC Pacific FIRST volunteer outreach for the past six years. Curtis has been involved with FIRST since organizing the first NAVWAR FLL Challenge at EHS in 2009. Although this year’s volunteer outreach efforts are looking different because of safety precautions, they are still working hard to support the robotics community and get NAVWAR and NWIC Pacific employees involved.
“Even with everything happening with COVID-19, NAVWAR and NWIC Pacific haven’t stopped with our STEM outreach,” said Curtis. “Although we weren’t able to host our own tournament this year, I’m thrilled to see volunteers still helping out with local competitions and providing exciting and meaningful STEM experiences for thousands of students.”
Moving forward, NAVWAR and NIWC Pacific remain dedicated to STEM outreach, no matter the obstacle. From coaching teams to building models, NAVWAR’s volunteer workforce will continue to provide exciting STEM experiences for students throughout San Diego.
About NAVWAR:
NAVWAR identifies, develops, delivers and sustains information warfighting capabilities and services that enable naval, joint, coalition and other national missions operating in warfighting domains from seabed to space and through cyberspace. NAVWAR consists of more than 11,000 civilian, active duty and reserve professionals located around the world.