On January 20th 2007, 48 Teams from across Georgia gathered at Georgia Tech to compete in the FIRST Lego League Competition with the theme being nanotechnology. For the last couple of months the teams of middle school students gathered to build, program and run lego robots on a mission with nanotechnology applications in mind. Meeting after and before school, weekends, and over winter break the teams did their research, design the robots, wrote the programs, and practiced in preparation. Some schools even offer a course called 'Robotics'. These competitions and the running of the robots are for the most part student-led with parent coaches aiding in coordinating the students, providing a place to meet, set-up, etc. In addition to the competition, the students had to write research papers on how their robots could be applied to the field of nanotechnology. All throughout the student center, there were poster displays, powerpoint presentations, and video of their research. From dental work to curing cancer there were myriads solutions that got the kids, coaches, and attendees thinking big about all things small.

Each of the robots had to complete the same 8 missions. All with applications to nanotechnology. There where 3 different ranges of difficulties and the missions simulated 3 different scales. In one scenario the robot must release a ball that is supposed to contain medicine into a lego container that resembles a person's arm bone. The idea behind this mission to simulate our need to deliver medicine to the exact area where it is needed. The rest of the missions have similar themes: self-alignment of atoms, moving dirt to test a fabric's resistance to stains and transferring pizza molecules to the nose to indicate directing smell.

What was really exciting was the many different approaches to the missions and strategy for moving from one mission to the other. It was also fascinating to see the different approaches the team took for sharing responsibility during the competition. Looking around at the hard-working, bright, and creative middle school students, I'd say the future looks bright for science, robotics and nanotechnology.