Master of ceremonies Steve Culivan, an employee of Penn State University and aerospace education specialist at NASA's Stennis Space Center, talked to a crowd of more than 300 who attended the Jan. 5 kickoff of the 2008 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition season. The students, coaches and mentors from three states who attended also watched a live broadcast from FIRST's Manchester, N.H., headquarters that revealed this year's competition challenge, and received parts kits from which they built robots to meet the challenge.

Steve Culivan, aerospace education specialist at Stennis Space Center, conducts a professional development workshop for fourth- through ninth-grade educators. During the Nov. 4 'Learning with the Stars' workshop, educators spent time learning about different aspects of the universe and enjoying a presentation of Stennis' portable planetarium.

FIRST LEGO League participants listen to Aerospace Education Specialist Chris Copelan explain the playing field for 'Nano Quest' during a recent FLL kickoff event at StenniSphere, the visitor center at NASA Stennis Space Center. The kickoff began the 2006 FLL competition season. Eighty-five teachers, mentors, parents and 9- to 14-year-old students from southern and central Mississippi came to SSC to hear the rules for Nano Quest. The challenge requires teams to spend eight weeks building and programming robots from LEGO Mindstorms kits. They'll battle their creations in local and regional competitions. The Dec. 2 competition at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College will involve about 200 students. FIRST LEGO League, considered the 'little league' of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition, partners FIRST and the LEGO Group. Competitions aim to inspire and celebrate science and technology using real-world context and hands-on experimentation, and to promote the principles of team play and gracious professionalism. Because NASA advocates robotics and science-technology education, the agency and SSC support FIRST by providing team coaches, mentors and training, as well as competition event judges, referees, audio-visual and other volunteer staff personnel. Two of Mississippi's NASA Explorer Schools, Bay-Waveland Middle and Hattiesburg's Lillie Burney Elementary, were in attendance. The following schools were also represented: Ocean Springs Middle, Pearl Upper Elementary, Long Beach Middle, Jackson Preparatory Academy, North Woolmarket Middle, D'Iberville Middle, West Wortham Middle, Picayune's Roseland Park Baptist Academy and Nicholson Elementary, as well as two home-school groups from McComb and Brandon. Gulfport and Picayune Memorial-Pearl River high schools' FIRST Robotics teams conducted robotics demonstrations for the FLL crowd.