CONGRATS TO WEST LIBERTY LIBRARY'S TECHNOTEENS!

The West Liberty Public Library's First Lego League team, TechnoTeens, with the support of Iowa State University Extension, Rockwell Collins, and volunteer coaches Mark McLain and Trista Clark participated in the prequalifying rounds at Cedar Rapids on Saturday, December 13th. Forty teams from Southeast Iowa competed. The Library's team received the Rising Star Award for potential and teamwork in a first-year team and now will participate at the State Tournament in Ames on January 17th.

First Lego League(FLL)is an international club for 9 to 13-year-olds that teaches children not only NTX Robotics design but also math, science,social studies and teamwork. There are also First Lego Leagues for 5-8 year-olds as well as a high school category.

In Iowa, FLL is sponsored by Iowa State University and Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids. Teams of 2-10 participants take on a yearly challenge, Climate Connections for 2008. The participants must find an issue related to the challenge locally, research and find the same issue on a global scale and then brainstorm and make a project presentation exploring the issue and then suggest a possible solution. Additionally, the students are given a game board with 12 tasks that they must build and then program a Lego NXT robot to complete.

The West Liberty Library's TechnoTeens are not only the first Library team to compete, but they are also one of the rare teams that are not associated with a school classroom environment.