The Clovernauts, a Clark County 4-H Robotics club, is an organization dedicated to teaching valuable Science, Technology and Teamwork skills to our community’s youth. In 2010, the Clovernauts took two teams to the First Lego League (FLL) state championship tournament in Oregon where both teams won trophies. FLL is an junior-level robotics program for 10 – 14 year olds using a LEGO Mindstorm NXT ro
bot kit to meet an annual robotic challenge and research project based on real world issues. This FLL event is locally operated by Oregon Robotics Tournament and Outreach Program (ORTOP). In addition to the FLL program, the Clovernauts club also formed a FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team for 14 – 18 year old youth. Dubbed a “varsity sport for the mind,” FRC combines the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology. It’s as close to “real world” engineering as high school students can get; building and competing with a robot of their own design. The teens can also qualify for more than $16 million in college scholarships. Their competition was held in March of 2011, and our Cloverbots took the Rookie Inspirational Award. Since then, the club has added two JrFLL teams for youth ages 5 - 9, and an FTC team for middle school students. As a 4-H Robotics club, the Clovernauts club falls under the jurisdiction of the Washington State University http://clark.wsu.edu/youth/
The club meets at the Manor Evangelical Church in Battle Ground, WA http://www.manorec.com/
The club focus is on participation in First Robotics Competitions http://www.usfirst.org/
