November 18, 2006--Team 812 hosted their 5th annual San Diego FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Competion at the Preuss School UCSD. Twelve FIRST LEGO League teams from all over southern California (check below for complete list of FLL teams that attended)participated and competed against each other in a friendly competition with their LEGO robots. The FLL competition this year is "Nano Quest" with the theme on nanotechnology.

LEGO teams checked their robots at their assigned pit station while awaiting for their matches, or for it to be their alotted time to present their research project. There was also a practice field for teams to test creations. Young middle school students crowded the playing fields to cheer on their robots as it made its away across the field all on autonomous programming. Food, refreshments, and music was provided. At the end of the day, seven awards were given, including a Director's Award, a Nano Quest Research Award, and a Best Robot Performance Award.

FIRST LEGO League students set up their LEGO-bot on the playing field.

It took two intense months for the students of Team 812 to bring this competition to life. The students of Team 812 planned everything: facilities setup, booking security and judges, planning matches, and so on. This year, the LEGO Competition was lead by Team 812 members Trang Dinh (Competition Director) and Catalina Santos (Competition Lead).

The competition would not have been possible without the individuals who helped Team 812 by volunteering their times to be judges and referees. Judges included John and Miriam Raunch, chief scientist and president of the Nu-Trek radition company, Willie Ho an engineer of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Olga Koroleva, a math teacher at The Preuss School UCSD, Stephan Pakbaz, and Dan Kleinman. Referees were college students from UCSD. The emcee for the event was TEam 812's mentor, George Chen.

Judges wearing green shirts evaluate and score teams on rubrics.

Aside from planning the event, some students from team 812 also acted as mentors to Preuss's very own FIRST LEGO teams. This year, Preuss had four FLL teams participating. Team 812 members spent over +50 hours working with the young middle school students. FIRST LEGO is an important aspect of FIRST to the Midnight Mechanics, and we continue to work actively with FIRST LEGO League teams.

FLL teams list:
Team 0264— Sandy Lego Beachbots
Team 0754—High Tech Middle Nanonerds
Team 1518—Valle Lindo Laserbotz
Team 2129—If rotation=1
Team 2659—Legosters Reloaded
Team 3259—Robo-Creation
Team 3344—Lego Mountaineers
Team 5034—Valle Lindo Electric Eagles
Team 5040A—Preuss Buckyballs
Team 5040B—Preuss Atomic Avengers
Team 5040C—Preuss Quantum Mechanics
Team 5040D—Preuss Nanotechs