Georgia Tech Hosts First Lego League State Tournament

The Georgia Institute of Technology will host 50 teams of 480 teens competing in the State of Georgia FIRST LEGO League Robotics Tournament on Saturday, January 29,  from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Student Center.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organization that was founded to inspire interest in science and engineering among young people.

Saturday's event is the State Championship and the top team of the event will advance to the World Festival in St. Louis in late April.

With a theme of “Body Forward,” teams of students aged 9 to 14 will explore the cutting-edge world of biomedical engineering to discover innovative ways to repair injuries, overcome genetic predispositions and maximize the bodies' potential, with the purpose of leading happier, healthier lives.

The event is co-hosted by Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing and Georgia Tech Research Institute, as well as LEGO Robotics Design and Outreach Community.

So far in this year's tournament, 337 teams have competed in 12 qualifiers and three super-regional contests, involving a total of 2,500 students. Through these qualifiers, the field was narrowed to 50 teams that will participate at the event Saturday at Tech.

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University of Georgia qualifies three teams for National Debate Tournament

The University of Georgia Debate Team has qualified three teams to the National Debate Tournament for the first time since 2003. The NDT will be held at the University of Texas at Austin later this month.

The NDT is a qualifying event for the 78 best two-person debate teams in the country. As part of the selection process, only six schools are allowed to bring three teams to the event, based on an evaluation of competitive records over the course of the season.

This year the schools that have qualified three teams are: University of California-Berkeley, Emory, Harvard, Northwestern, Wake Forest and the University of Georgia.

The three UGA teams are comprised of debaters Brittany Cambre and Adam Schmidt, Karen Harrison and Maggy Warden, and Mike Lacy and Tommy Beyer.

The team’s new coach, Casey Harrigan, is in his first year at UGA preparing the teams for both regional and national competitions. This also marks the 20th consecutive year that UGA has qualified at least one team for the National Debate Tournament. Harrigan is a faculty member in the department of speech communication in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

The trip to Austin will be funded through the support of the President’s Venture Fund.

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Munson Puts Fayette County 's Starr’s Mill High on the Radar at Blue Key Speech and Debate Tournament

Imagine walking into your office and being told that you have just 30 minutes to research and prepare a persuasive seven-minute speech on a particular topic. Well, if you were Molly Munson, you would not even break a sweat.

Molly, a student at Starr’s Mill High in Fayetteville, Georgia, was awarded second place in Extemporaneous Speaking at the 25th annual Blue Key Speech and Debate Tournament held last month at the University of Florida. She competed against 51 high school students from Georgia, Pennsylvania and Florida to win the coveted honor.

Before the tournament even started, Molly proved she could hold her own against some very competitive debaters. She was one of six students selected to participate in the annual Blue Key Round Robin that foreshadows the general tournament. Only the nation’s most skilled and accomplished student speakers are invited to participate.

After competing in five grueling rounds with a cross examination after each speech, Molly emerged victorious taking third place in the Mixed Extemporaneous Speaking division.

“She had the eventual winner, the current national champion, shaking in his boots. She has done the best of any Starr’s Mill student in the history of the school,” says Molly’s proud mother Sue Munson.

Nine students from Starr’s Mill, including Molly, participated in the tournament. Eric Bogert, Hannah Mattia, Martin Halicek and Jacob Nails competed in the Lincoln Douglas Debate and Aaron Ash, Noah Brunner, Lauren Mattia and Syneva Runyan were competitors in the Public Forum Debate.

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UWG Debate Team Continues Success Streak

The University of West Georgia Debate Team earned a 17-1 record after competing in two tournaments at the Las Vegas Round Robin Invitational at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

In the first tournament, the UWG Debate Team and Florida residents Vince Binder of Gainesville and Jim Schultz of Jupiter earned a perfect record of 10-0 while competing against several nationally ranked universities including Emory University, Kansas State University, University of Texas and University of Wyoming. In the second tournament, the Schultz and Binder Debate team earned a 10-1 record.

In a round robin format, each team debates every other team participating in the competition. Schultz and Binder debated and won over every team. The team was also recognized for their speaking skills with Schultz established as the top individual speaker in both events. Binder ranked in the top ten as a sixth place speaker.

The UWG Debate Team has seen great success in previous years. Under the direction of Dr. Michael Hester, assistant dean of the Honors College and Debate coach, the team has participated in numerous debate competitions and has qualified for a National Debate Tournament 36 consecutive years.

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