Bacteria! Mercury! BPA’s!  Is our food safe?  FIRST Lego League and Solon Engineers’ Club challenges nearly 100 students in Solon and surrounding communities to find innovative solutions to ensure that it is.  On Friday, November 18^th, from 6 – 9 p.m. at the Solon Middle School Lecture Hall, these students will provide a sneak preview of their creative and innovative results. 

This event is free and open to the public.

Twenty-five teams of students from Kindergarten through ninth grade make up Solon Engineers’ Club FIRST engineering teams.  Their research began in September when FIRST released the Food Factor challenge internationally.  This year, the teams each select a food safety concern and work to discover an innovative solution to that concern.  Teams also compete in a robotics game, which requires them to design and build a Lego robot to complete specified missions. The third team requirement challenges them to solve a team problem without their coach, and present their work on the core values of gracious professionalism, teamwork, and discovery.  

In the spring of 2010 the MIT Alumni Club of Northeast Ohio, led by Nadine Otterman, helped inspire and form ten Lego League teams in Solon.  The coaches and parents of those original ten teams founded the Solon Engineers’ Club (SEC) in January 2011.  The SEC’s mission is to inspire students to pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and to become gracious, professional leaders.  In its initial year, two of SEC’s teams progressed to the statewide competition in Columbus. 

The meeting to form teams is held in early spring.  More information can be found at the Solon STEM website.

Editor's Note: This information was provided by the Solon Engineer's Club.