This past weekend, the Penguins won the top award in their regional competition held at PAST Foundation. The Penguins' coaches were also awarded the Coach/Mentor Award.

Each year, FIRST Lego League (FLL) chooses a broad theme for the teams to explore. The teams identify a problem related to the theme they are passionate about and design a solution. The 2023-24 season's theme was "First in Show: Masterpiece," an arts-inspired theme. The FLL season typically starts in August, with the regional competition scheduled from mid-November to mid-December. The Penguins chose chess as their research project, looking at how the pieces moved and creating stories surrounding each piece to explain why they had to move the way they did. Additionally, the group explored using virtual reality to visualize and interact with the chess pieces.

The Penguins were formed in 2012 by Byrd faculty member Bryan Mark (Coach B) as a community team of students from different schools and grades. Byrd Systems Manager Tom Kassebaum (Coach T) joined in 2014. The Byrd FLL Penguins have had teams every year since, with at least one Penguin being the child of a Byrd member. Each FLL team can have as few as two and up to ten members. The teams can range in age from 9 to 14 years old.

The current Penguins team comprises five students. They hold two-hour weekly meetings on Sunday afternoons at the Byrd Center. Parents and Byrd member volunteer coaches mentor the team. The team has had fun working hard every week, enhancing robot engineering and research skills, and is now preparing for the district tournament on January 27, 2024, in Newark, Ohio. We wish them the best of luck!

To learn more, contact one of the coaches. If you would like to help the Byrd Center in supporting the team, visit their giving page.