Route 1 Robotics teams invite public to event

Jan. 14—DANVILLE — Route 1 Robotics is a community club for youths to explore Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) and Robotics through the FIRST Robotics organization.

The two teams, FiRST Lego League (FLL) for students in 4th through 8th grades, and FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) for students in 7th through 12th grades, are having a Community Share Night from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Jan. 19 at Central Christian Church, 1101 N. Vermilion St., Danville.

The public is invited to learn more about the two teams and their competition robots. FLL will be doing its Innovation Project Presentation and showing robot table runs, while FTC will be demonstrating its competition robot and talking about some of their design processes. The students also can answer questions.

There will be refreshments.

The FTC team has competitions in Forsyth on Jan. 14 and in Maryville, Ill. on Feb. 11.

The FLL team has qualified for state. The Tesla tournament at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is on Jan. 28.

Approximately 25 percent of all teams participating in an FLL Qualifying Tournament will receive an invitation to a state-level tournament.

FIRST Illinois Robotics tournaments are named to honor famous scientists and inventors. The Champaign tournament is named after Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856 — Jan. 7, 1943). Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.

Route 1 Robotics started in 2017. The teams have won various awards in past years. The student participants attend different schools.

Team coaches are Scott Ohlmiller, Ashley Harrier and Karen Berryman.