Contestants ages 9 to 14 took part in the annual FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge Long Island Qualifiers, which were held remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Team #16174 “Meteorites” from Hicksville won the first-place Champion’s Award at Qualifier #1. The Qualifier #3 Champion’s Award winner was Team #38503 “Techno Queens” from Jericho. The top teams won by embodying the program’s Core Values of teamwork and mutual respect while achieving excellence and innovation in both a robot game and innovative project.

Twenty-one FIRST LEGO League teams will advance to the remote championship on April 17. Out of 21 teams, eleven from Qualifier #1 will advance. They are Team #2180 “LHS LE’GO Lions” from Middle Island; Team #2438 “Camol Clan” from Floral Park; Team #6435 “Fire Dragons” from Rocky Point; Team #16174 “Meteorites” from Hicksville; Team #23785 “Meteorites Squared” from Hicksville; Team #37506 “MicroChip Cookies” from Plainview; Team #45172 “Meteorites Cubed” from Hicksville; Team #48239 “Wild Shattered Lightning Bots” from Huntington; Team #49922 “The Barracudas” from Ridge; Team #51252 “The Smarties” from Hicksville; and Team #51732 “Dragon Racers” from Huntington.

Ten out of the 20 teams from Qualifier #3 moved on as well. They include Team #8085 “Rocky Point Radical Robotix” from Rocky Point; Team #22112 “Portledge Royal Panthers” from Locust Valley; Team #37507 “WALL-E Workers” from New Hyde Park; Team #38503 “Techno Queens” from Jericho; Team #38653 “Imagination in a Nutshell II” from Jericho; Team #41153 “Epic Robot” from Roslyn; Team #42994 “GALABOTS” from Syosset; Team #43820 “Robotic Lightning Kangaroos” from Huntington; Team #50815 “Brickaneers Duplo” from Islip; and Team #50946 “Overpowered Spicy Robot” from Syosset.

FIRST LEGO League Challenge is an international program for 9- to 16-year-old children (ages vary by country) created in a partnership between FIRST and the LEGO Group in 1998 to get children excited about science and technology – and teach them valuable career and life skills. Children work alongside adult Mentors to design, build, and program autonomous robots using LEGO® Education SPIKETM Prime or LEGO® MINDSTORMS® and create an innovative solution to a problem as part of their Innovation Project.

This year’s Challenge – RePLAYSM – called for teams to identify a problem related to people not being active enough, research the problem and design a new piece of technology or improve an existing one to help them solve that problem.

The competition is judged in three areas: Innovation Project; Robot Design, and Core Values, which embody aspects of teamwork and good sportsmanship. Top robot game scores are also honored. The award winners were as follows:

The Coach/Mentor Award for Qualifier #1 went to Bryan Eichenauer of Team #45172 “Meteorites Cubes” from Hicksville. Maria Zografos of Team #22112 “The Royal Panthers” from Locust Valley won the award for Qualifier #3.