Menu

Holyoke Codes: FIRST LEGO League Robotics Competition

March 2, 2018

Holyoke Codes, launched in December 2014 as part of Computer Science Education Week, is a collaborative partnership of the MGHPCC; Girls Inc. of Holyoke; Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education; New England Regional Developers; Sweet and Fizzy. Educators, computer science and IT professionals develop and teach our workshops, which provide hands-on experiences for kids and families in coding, robotics, and technology.
A major focus for Holyoke Codes last fall was their second year of participation in the FIRST LEGO League robotics competition. Each year’s challenge has three parts: the Robot Game, the Project, and the Core Values. Over a period of several weeks, teams of up to ten kids, with at least two adult coaches, participate in the Challenge by programming an autonomous robot to score points on the themed playing field (Robot Game), identifying a problem related to the Challenge and developing a solution, all guided by the FIRST LEGO League core values. The teams then attend an official local tournament, hundreds of which are held throughout the world for tens of thousands of participants.
This year’s challenge was especially relevant to Holyoke: Hydro-Dynamics. The kids learned all about water: how we find, transport, use or dispose of it. From September to December two teams met at the MGHPCC, two or three times a week, on this effort, culminating in satisfying local competitions (although neither made it to regionals.) A big thank you to Big Voodoo Interactive and the Holyoke Gas & Electric Department for sponsoring these teams!

Links

Holyoke Codes

Related

"Holyoke Codes and Rows" Aims to Inspire STEM Pursuits Community Foundation of Western MA
Hooray for Holyoke Codes! MGHPCC News

Research projects

Foldit
Dusty With a Chance of Star Formation
Checking the Medicine Cabinet to Interrupt COVID-19 at the Molecular Level
Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold But Still, Is It Just Right?​
Smashing Discoveries​
Microbiome Pattern Hunting
Modeling the Air we Breathe
Exploring Phytoplankton Diversity
The Computer Will See You Now
Computing the Toll of Trapped Diamondback Terrapins
Edging Towards a Greener Future
Physics-driven Drug Discovery
Modeling Plasma-Surface Interactions
Sensing Subduction Zones
Neural Networks & Earthquakes
Small Stars, Smaller Planets, Big Computing
Data Visualization using Climate Reanalyzer
Getting to Grips with Glassy Materials
Modeling Molecular Engines
Forest Mapping: When the Budworms come to Dinner
Exploring Thermoelectric Behavior at the Nanoscale
The Trickiness of Talking to Computers
A Genomic Take on Geobiology
From Grass to Gas
Teaching Computers to Identify Odors
From Games to Brains
The Trouble with Turbulence
A New Twist
A Little Bit of This... A Little Bit of That..
Looking Like an Alien!
Locking Up Computing
Modeling Supernovae
Sound Solution
Lessons in a Virtual Test Tube​
Crack Computing
Automated Real-time Medical Imaging Analysis
Towards a Smarter Greener Grid
Heading Off Head Blight
Organic Light-Harvesting Antennae
Art and AI
Excited by Photons
Tapping into an Ocean of Data
Computing Global Change
Star Power
Engineering the Human Microbiome
Computing Social Capital
Computers Diagnosing Disease
All Research Projects

Collaborative projects

ALL Collaborative PROJECTS

Outreach & Education Projects

See ALL Scholarships
100 Bigelow Street, Holyoke, MA 01040