The First Lego League is hosting a qualifying tournament for the first time ever at West Ranch High, and organizers are welcoming the community to view the robot action next month.

The November 5 competition represents the culmination of months of planning and hard work by the competitors, said John Woodworth, one of the local mentors who helps coach high school-aged competitors.

Every year, the high school competitors — who are hosting this year’s event at West Ranch High for the younger groups — get together and compete on a basketball court-sized playing area, in which about a half-dozen robots compete with their teams to direct the machines to complete their required tasks.

Video courtesy of the First Lego League website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qeBFeFyYp0&feature=youtu.be

“This year, the competition is called ‘Hydro Dynamics,’” Woodworth said, “they have six weeks to get it to go, to build, to program and practice — they have to have their entire game strategy down.”

Guided by two or more coaches, First Lego League teams, which consist of up to 10 members, in grades 4-8, research a real-world problem, such as food safety, recycling, energy, etc., and are challenged to develop a solution, according to the First Lego League website. Competitors  must design, build, program a robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS software, and then compete on a table-top playing field.

This competition is considered a qualifier for the international Lego League competition, Woodworth said, and the middle-schoolers’ teams will have their robots compete on a 4 foot by 8 foot surface against other teams’ robots trying to complete the same task.

“We’re mentoring a program at West Ranch,” Woodworth said, hoping the first event for the group at the high school, which will feature 32 teams from all over Southern California, will drum up additional interest in the program.

The tournament-style competition will take place from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and there will food trucks, a pet-adoption event and guests from some of the many NASA and Jet Propulsion Lab employees who live in the Santa Clarita Valley, according to the event’s orgainzers.

The event is being put on at the high school by robotics teams “Project 691” and “Heat it Up, Keep it Cool,” which compete at the high school level.

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