Lower School Lego Robotics Team Advances

"Two Lower School Lego teams competed at a tournament on Saturday December 10 and both teams did really well," reports coach, Mr. Todd Webster, Lower School science teacher.

"The theme this year for the First Lego League Events was about food safety, food contamination, and other related issues. Each team identified a real world problem related to the theme, researched the chosen problem, and proposed an engineered solution to address the issue.

"In addition, each team built a Lego-based autonomous robot that they operated at the event on a standardized Lego Playing field. This playing field has a wide range of missions that teams choose to engage and each mission is valued at different point values. Only a handful of teams in the world will complete each mission and receive the highest score possible. Instead, most teams evaluate missions to see which ones they feel are most plausible for their robot.

"At the event, teams made three different presentations - one about their research project, one about their robot design, and one about the core values of teamwork and cooperation. After all three presentations were completed, students brought their robot to the competition boards and competde head-to-head in three table matches.

"I hope from the descriptions above that you can begin to appreciate the hard work and high level thinking required to be successful," says Mr. Webster. "Our students have put in many hours both at school and at home and have worked very hard on these projects.

"Team 'Fishy Wishy' (fifth graders Samia Menon, Andrew Liu, Sam Makuch, and Henry Buchan) investigated mercury poisoning in fish and proposed a hand-held mercury scanner as a solution for the fishing industry to use to identify individual fish with high levels of mercury. Their robot was a well designed and sturdy machine that performed well at the event. They tied for the 8th highest table score at the event (out of 23 teams). 'Fishy Wishy' was awarded the Gracious Professionalism Award for demonstrating teamwork skills throughout all aspects of their presentations and table competitions!

"Team 'Bar-B-Q-ers' (fifth graders Adam Dulay, David Lyons, Clayton Ferguson) investigated bacterial growth in backyard BBQ sauce. They proposed a method to minimize bacterial contamination on grilled food items and in the sauce often used afterward. Their robot was a well designed little tank that performed extremely well. They consistently scored high and posted the third highest table score at the tournament. Fourth grader Jonah Wooley was also a hard-working member of the Bar-B-Q-ers but was unable to join his team at the Saturday event.

"The Bar-B-Q-ers" were one of 6 teams to receive an invitation to move on to the next level of competition next month in Akron, OH," said the very proud Mr. Webster. "This may be Hawken's first invite ever to the regional level event!"