CATT Builds Excitement about Science and Technology to Elementary Students

Kathleen Frankle (pictured far right) poses with the Huntingtown Elementary School “Heron-otics” Lego Robotics Team

Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) Program  Manager, Kathleen Frankle, assisted the Huntingtown Elementary School “Heron-otics”  Lego Robotics Team to help prepare them for their Calvert County Robotics  Challenge which was held on Saturday, April 2nd. 

The Calvert County Robotics Challenge is a local competition  modeled after the First Lego League (FLL) annual international  competition.  The goal of the FLL is to  introduce young students to the excitement of real-world engineering and math  by building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface  and participating in a research project.   All teams, guided by their own imaginations and adult coaches, discover  exciting career possibilities, and through the process learn to make positive  contributions to society. 

Seventeen Calvert County middle and elementary school teams  participated in the Calvert County Robotics Challenge.  Each team was judged in four different  categories:  robot missions, a technical  interview about robot design and programming, a transportation related team  project and a teamwork challenge.  The theme  of this year’s event was “Smart Move: Transforming Transportation” which was  used by FLL in 2009.  The “Heron-otics”  were crowned competition winners – taking home trophies for the Champions  Award, Excellence Award and the Robot Performance Award.  The Champions Award is for the team with the  highest score in the robot missions and the Excellence Award goes to the team  with overall excellent performance in all areas of judgment. 

Along with providing assistance to the Heron-otics, CATT  also funded the purchase of a second robot and needed Lego supplies for the  team.

CATT is no stranger to the FLL competition, last year CATT Director  Tom Jacobs and CATT Lab Director Michael Pack assisted another local team, Team  Stormers, who also won their local competition.

For more information about FLL, visit: First Lego League. 

About CATT
The Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) in  the A. James Clark School of Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental  Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, was created in order  to respond to the significant changes brought about by the increasing use of  advanced technologies in the transportation field. A permanent staff of ITS  professionals and affiliated faculty of the Department of Civil Engineering  supports CATT. All offer extensive knowledge and experience in the areas of ITS  technology, traffic engineering and control, systems analysis, and operations  research. Visit CATT on the web at www.catt.umd.edu.

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April 12, 2011