This February, teams of middle-school students arrived at Flushing Library for the QPL FIRST LEGO League Robotics Tournament. This exciting day involved parents and siblings as the audience for an event full of innovation and teamwork. The students spent 16 weeks preparing for the tournament.

The teams came from six branches: Bayside (two teams), Baisley Park, East Flushing, Kew Gardens Hills, Long Island City, and Queensboro Hill. About two dozen students competed in robot challenges and values demonstrations. 

While everyone was a winner for participating, some teams got special recognition for their results and actions along the way.

Kew Gardens Hills & Long Island City’s combined team, City Shapers, came in first place in robotics mission challenges, with Bayside’s Baby Yoda in second and Bayside’s Team Robots in third.

For the core values category, East Flushing’s League of Geniuses came in first, Bayside’s Team Robots was second, and Queensboro Hill’s Ice Cream Destroyer was in third.

A grant from the Queens Public Library’s Innovation Fund and a partnership with New York City FIRST, a nonprofit that provides hands-on STEM education and robotics programs for 7,000 students each year, were part of making this event possible for the second year in a row!

Congratulations to all the participants and thank you to all of the library staff whose hard work contributed to making this such a special day.