It was all about developing a “Sustainable Green Subdivision.” And it was the entry that won three 2nd Place awards for a group of Coweta and Fayette kids in January as part of a statewide competition at Georgia Tech sponsored by the international First Lego League (FLL). The “biobots” team boasts six members from the Sharpsburg, Senoia and Peachtree City areas.

FLL is a global program created to get children excited about science and technology and currently has more than 140,000 children ages 9-14 in 56 countries actively involved in the program.

The Coweta/Fayette group got their start last year as a home school project, said coach Maria Beaty. Today the team consists of four homeschoolers and two regular schoolers, Beaty said. One year later, the biobots in the Project Research competition took home 2nd Place in regional, super-regional and statewide.

Beaty said FLL uses challenges based on real world scientific problems to engage children in research, problem solving, and engineering. The foundation of the program is in its core values, which emphasize friendly sportsmanship, learning, and community involvement.

“FLL picks a theme every year. But it’s more than working on a project. It teaches core values in teamwork and research and it prepares kids to keep those values when they get into the workforce,” Beaty said. “And the work has to be done by the team members. Parents are not allowed to help or even touch he project.”

Following the “Safer Transportation” theme of this year’s competition, the entry by the biobots was entitled Sustainable Green Subdivision, in which team members constructed a model of a subdivision and showed how they would address issues such as reducing transportation, cutting the use of pesticides, eating healthier and reducing the cost to bring consumables to the market.

As for next year’s theme, that will be bio-medical engineering, Beaty said.

FLL global sponsors include Lego, 3M, Rockwell Automation, Vestas and National Instruments.

For more information on the Coweta/Fayette biobots contact Maria Beaty at [email protected]