FIRST Lego League teams from Candia and Hooksett converged on Manchester Central High School on Saturday, Nov. 17, for a qualifying tournament in hopes of making it to the state championships.

Cawley Middle School in Hooksett sent their Hawk Bots, while Candia had two teams participating in the event. The Game Freaks came from the Moore School, and the all-female Technochicks team, who are sponsored by the GirlsConnect scholarship fund.

The 2007 robot challenge for FIRST Lego league was based on efficient energy resources and preservation.

Each team’s robot had to perform a variety of tasks on a field containing Lego models, including placing a solar panel on the roof of a house, installing a dam in a river, inserting wind turbines, “mining” for uranium and planting trees.

Additionally, each team had to build their own functioning wave turbine to bring to the competition.

Teams were judged on their robot’s performance as well as its design. There was also a team problem-solving component in which each team entered a room with judges and had to work together to solve an assigned problem.

The Technochicks took the Champion’s Award, which is the highest achievement in FLL competitions. The team who best exemplifies FIRST values of knowledge, motivation and teamwork, as well as obtaining good scores in the other more technical areas, receives this award.

The Robot Design Award, given to the team with the most inventive or efficient robot design, went to the Game Freaks. For this award, the judges interview the team members to figure out how they came up with their ideas for the robot.

Both the Technochicks and the Game Freaks will advance, along with several other winning teams, to the state FLL championship tournament at Nashua North High School on Saturday, Dec. 8.

The Central High FIRST Robotics Team (CHAOS) put on this event.

“We used to mentor teams and needed a place for them to compete so we started the Manchester Qualifying FLL Tournament,” said teacher David Kelso.

“This was our sixth year organizing this event. At the same time, the team has been helping run the UNH Durham FLL competition for four years.”