Basic HTML Version
Page 3
Campus Review
February 26, 2013
Clayton State Comes Together Quickly
To Host Lego League Super Regionals
by Samantha Watson, University Relations
Clayton State Professor to Blog from
China While on Fulbright Teaching Scholarship
by John Shiffert, University Relations
Clayton State University was able to host
the 2013 First Lego League Super
Regionals in January, having put together
the competition in almost as little time as
it took the North Clayton Middle School
RoboTigers to build their robot. The
Super Regionals were originally planned
to be held at Georgia Perimeter College,
but the school had to pull out in
November 2012, leaving Clayton State
the responsibility of planning the event in
less than two months.
First Lego League (FLL) is a global pro-
gram created to get kids excited about sci-
ence and technology. FLL utilizes theme-
based challenges to engage kids in
research, problem solving, and engineer-
ing. The cornerstones of the program are
its Core Values, which emphasize contri-
butions of others, friendly sportsmanship,
learning, and community involvement.
Each annual Challenge has two parts, the
Project and the Robot Game. Working in
teams of up to 10 participants and guided
by at least one adult coach, team members
have about 10 weeks to:
Build an autonomous robot that will, in
two minutes and 30 seconds, complete
pre-designed missions;
Analyze, research, and invent a solution
for a given assignment;
Create a clever presentation about their solu-
tion to perform in front of a panel of judges.
The First Lego League theme for this year
is “Seniors and Enhancing Living
Conditions.” Participants were given
tasks that they had to complete by pro-
gramming their Lego robots to do them.
The tasks would correlate to the senior
theme and would consist of picking up a
tipped over chair and other tasks a senior
citizen may encounter.
The College of Information and
Mathematical Sciences (CIMS) at
Clayton State University Associate
Professor of Education Dr. Mary
Hollowell and her family have arrived at
the home of the Terracotta Warriors.
Hollowell will be teaching American
Educational Policy and American
Children's Literature in English to
Chinese college students at Shaanxi
Normal University (SNNU) in Xi’an,
China, for the spring and summer of 2013.
The capital of Shaanxi Province in cen-
tral-northwest China, Xi’an is also home
to the famous Terracotta Warriors, a col-
lection of sculptures that depict the armies
of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. A form of
funerary art, the 8,000 plus statutes were
buried with the emperor sometime around
210 B.C., to both protect him in the after-
life, and to make sure that he still had sub-
jects to rule over.
Of more recent significance, Hollowell is
going to China on a Fulbright Teaching
Scholarship. Clayton State faculty mem-
bers have previously earned a half dozen
short-term Fulbright-Hays Grants, but this
is the University’s first Fulbright
Teaching Scholarship. Journeying to
Xi’an from Peachtree City with Hollowell
will be daughters Kate and Sophie Mei.
Husband Scott Hollowell, who has busi-
ness commitments this spring, will join
the rest of the family later in the year. The
Hollowells have previously journeyed to
China to adopt daughter Sophie Mei.
LEGO, cont’d., p. 12
Hollowell, cont’d., p. 14