FIRST World Festival is an International Robotics event organized by FIRST annually at Atlanta.
FIRST (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science and Technology) is a US not for profit organization which organizes four main events :

1. FIRST LEGO League (FLL) : for age group 9 -14 years
2. FIRST Vex Challenge (FVC) : for High School students
3. FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) : for High School students
4. Junior FLL : for age group 6 - 9 years


These competitions are being organized by FIRST for past many years, this year was the 10th anniversary for FLL. Teams go through a global selection procedure where recognized regional qualifying rounds are conducted and the top teams are chosen to participate in the international festival. SAP AG is one of the main sponsors for the FLL event. Committing to the cause of spreading the knowledge of Robotics among school children (age 9-14 years) SAP runs local events across its various locations. This year from SAP Labs India there were ten teams registered for the event. Out of this five teams finally competed in the local finals and the Champions Awardees (nanoSAPians) were invited to participate in the Global Finals in Atlanta. A total of 10000 students in around 300 teams were representing 23 countries.



Achievement of nanoSAPians @ FLL World Festival :

The team nanoSAPians (team # 6370) stood runners up in the Alliance Event at FLL World Festival. Together with the alliance partners from Maryland, Alaska and Canada we managed to score 368 out of 370 points in the event. The Alliance event is one of the four events in which there are four teams which chose the missions on the basis of their performance and are together supposed to conquer the set of 8 missions. We managed to perform 100% of the task allocated to us. The synergy of the teams was at its best. We missed the winners award by a whisker.


The Effort & Results :

Teams definitely have put in their part. In case of nanoSAPians the work started in June-July 2006 when we recruited these kids from NPS Koramangla for our team. Since then it had been around 400 hours each of personal time (averaging ~ 10 hrs/week) put in by both the coaches individually beyond the work schedule. What to say about the efforts from the children. They were completely immersed in the Challenge for past around ten months.

We have put a lot of perspiration in the challenge and though we outperformed our score in the local finals, there is a lot of scope for improvement in future challenges. Th ere were other events on Research and Technical Presentation where we could have done much better. Unfortunately we focused our energies entirely on the robot design. Less experienced but a long way to go.



The FLL Experience :

The FLL event was a great experience for the students. It was an Olympics of Robotics. Getting a chance to interact with more experienced teams from various parts of the world and experiencing the latest trends in Robotics first hand was quite an exposure. From our discussion with the kids after the event, The event has kindled a strong inclination towards technology in them. Meeting the creators of the LEGO challenge and watching the extensive use that the LEGO kits can be put to was also quite thrilling.

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Who Dares, Wins.

PS: Dont forget to see the Video to see the team members and the action recorded!