NYU-Poly Announces Qualifying Round of the Annual FIRST LEGO League

The Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) has announced that more than 400 elementary and middle school students and their teachers will gather at the University for the Qualifying Round of the annual FIRST LEGO League (FLL).

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a not-for-profit that inspires students to get involved in science and technology via hands-on robotics competitions, has announced that FLL is one of four robotics programs offered by the organization. This is the 12th year that NYU-Poly and FIRST have hosted FLL, which introduces kids age nine-14 to the thrill of hands-on robotics, research, teamwork and inquiry-based problem solving, in order to spark a lifelong passion for science and technology, the company stated in a press release.

“NYU-Poly's experience integrating FIRST in its STEM education programs is exciting," said Jon Dudas, president of FIRST. "FIRST is a terrific portal into the world of engineering and robotics, and NYU-Poly is using FIRST to provide greater access for schools, teachers and students for hands-on training, mentoring and techniques for success in FIRST programs, and then connect these activities to new opportunities for quality STEM education in schools and student achievement in STEM disciplines.”

Engaging kids from the age of six through high school, NYU-Poly works with New York FIRST on all four FIRST programs. In 2012, FIRST programs will involve more than 293,000 participants. FLL selects a real-world problem that can be aided with technological or robotic solutions, and each student team conceives and designs a project to address the challenge each year.

Recently, NYU-Poly announced the university’s colleagues in France and Germany educated Internet scholars on the flaws in Skype (News - Alert) . During the Internet Measurement Conference 2011 in Berlin on November 2, 2011, their paper, “I Know Where You are and What You are Sharing,” was presented. The authors were Chao Zhang and Keith Ross of NYU-Poly; Stevens Le Blond of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS), Germany; and Arnaud Legout and Walid Dabbous of the French research institute I.N.R.I.A Sophia Antipolis.

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