Tournament co-director Brad Weil of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory says this year's tournament theme is "Ocean Odyssey."
"Our oceans are of vital importance to the health of our Earth, yet only one percent of them are actually only utilized and explored," says Weil. "This year the children are learning about our oceans."
The students have been working on their projects during the past eight weeks.
"They had to choose a project that dealt with some sort of activity or resource that they use and look at ways in which they could change the way we do things to try to improve the health of our oceans," Weil says.
The state tournament is co-sponsored by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee Tech University and Modern Tech Mechanical of Knoxville.
The overall state championship team will compete in April at the World Lego Tournament in Atlanta.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy.