Earning a spot in a state championship can be difficult enough for any team, especially if they are all new to the game. That didn’t stop the rookie students on Independence Elementary’s LEGO Robotics team, who placed ninth out of 31 teams at a qualifying tournament and moved on to the state championship.
The group of fifth graders named their team ‘Triple Threat? because they can build, program, and research, the three key areas scored by judges at the LEGO competitions.
The First LEGO League, which was established eight years ago, hosts annual competitions between students from around the world. This year’s theme revolves around nano-technology, microscopic robots that have the potential for many applications but are still very much in development. Besides designing, programming, and building a robotic device to use in several nano-themed challenges, the team was required to research nano-technology and give a presentation on their findings to a panel of judges.
Being a team comprised exclusively of fifth graders meant everyone, including coaches Cheryl and Mike McNeil, were rookies this time around.
‘Everybody was new to this so we tried to have reserved expectations,? said Cheryl. ‘When they called our team to go on we were very happy.?
‘We beat eighth-graders,? exclaimed Brock Nowak.
The competition pitted students ages 9-14 against one another, meaning rookie teams like Triple Threat were pitted against teams that have been participating for four years.
‘It was scary because we didn’t know what we were going up against,? said Mitchell Perimoulx, who added that earning a spot in the state competition helped relieve the group’s anxiety. ‘You’re still nervous but you don’t care because you’ve already made it.?
The team had approximately 10 weeks to prepare for the first competition. The regional event took place at Lakeland High School in Midland on Nov. 11. They secure a spot in the state championship, which is scheduled to take place Dec. 9 in Novi, against 59 other teams. The highest placing teams at the Novi competition will move on to the world festival competition, which takes place in Atlanta in April, 2007.
Even if the team does not go beyond the state competition, the program has been a beneficial one, according to Cheryl, who works as an engineer at DaimlerChrysler.
‘It’s probably the most rewarding volunteer program I’ve done,? she said. ‘You get to see those ‘a-ha? moments.?