Claymont team wins robot league meet

Brad Baber and Haleigh Smith

Everyone on Claymont Elementary School's First Lego League team said they'd played with Lego building blocks. However, before this fall, only one of them knew that Lego toys had gone "high tech."

Despite little experience, the 10-member Claymont Aces team won the top award during the 2003 First Lego League Missouri State Championship tournament. Their winning entry featured a home-made Lego robot vehicle powered by a computerized "brain brick."

(To learn more about participating in First Lego League, see sidebar below.)

Madison Bechmann and Scott Tucci with the Director's trophy.

Teams in the tournament had to research a Mission to Mars. They then built a robot vehicle and programming it. The Claymont team even included a "news broadcast" skit explaining the project and their teamwork.

The Director's award went to the team with the highest total category scores. There were teams from across Missouri, included some with previous experience.

Ten-year-old Victoria Kaiser was one of the Claymont team members. She's the one who had previous experience with the higher-tech Lego systems.

"When I was younger, my older sister, Katherine, and I built an alien-type bug that moved," Victoria said.

Sara Krachmalnick and Victoria Kaiser

Other team members said their Lego experiences were with original style Lego blocks.

Ten-year-old Grant McConnell said, "I had made a model helicopter out of Legos but it didn't move or fly."

Ten-year-old J.D. Hankammer said, "I've got a big bin of Legos at home. My older brother, John, and I made a big Lego base with a tower." It didn't move either.

For the Lego league competition, the kids learned about "high tech" Lego. There were computers, electric engines, the "brain brick" and lots of vehicle movement programming.

The Claymont robot vehicle could move forward and backward and made sharp turns. They even programmed the vehicle's catapult to throw a "payload" ball.

Grant McConnell and Kyle Bailey

Also, there was a special "windshield wiper" to clean imaginary Mars dust off solar panels.

The Claymont project turned out to be more than a school effort.

For instance, 10-year-old Brad Baber's father, mother and older brother, Brandon, helped. Father Brent Baber is an engineer at Monsanto and he provided technical help.

Also, brother Brandon was the team's "mentor coach." Brandon is a sixth grader at Claymont. The boys' mother was one of several parents who helped teacher Mary Buck in class during the three-a-week project classes.

Brad said the Lego project got him thinking about a career as an inventor or engineer.

Eleven-year-old Haleigh Smith said her favorite part of the robot project was writing the informational skit. All kids had voice parts in the skit, which was in the form of a radio "news broadcast" from Mars.

J.D. Hankammer and Jordan Smith

In addition to explaining the science of the project, the broadcast included two commercials. One was for the Dusty Point Resort on Mars and the other was for the Dust Buster vacuum to clear the heavy Mars dust.

Haleigh said her mother, Kris, is helping create a scrapbook about the team's accomplishments.

Eleven-year-old Madison Bechmann said her favorite part of the project was the researching. "It taught me a lot about Mars," she said. But, she admitted the knowledge didn't convince her to take an actual trip to Mars.

Eleven-year-old Scott Tucci said the team got a Lego kit from the company to use in building the robot vehicle. However, he said lots of kids brought extra Lego pieces from home so they could make their project bigger and better.

He said he brought the pieces that let the team add a catapult arm to the vehicle. Kids then programmed the vehicle's "brain brick" so the arm threw a ball into a container.

Eleven-year-old Sara Krachmalnick said her favorite part of the project was "watching the robot compete against itself" while it navigated the tournament course. She said you can make the vehicle turn sharper corners by shortening the time of the "turn" program.

Eleven-year-old Kyle Bailey said, "I liked the programming because I'd never done that before." The team made lots of programming changes to make sure the robot vehicle ran the best possible route.

Ten-year-old Jordan Smith said she liked the Mars research the best. "I did research on the rover vehicle and learned lots about the weather on Mars and how cold it was," she said.

Several team members said they'd like to upgrade their home Lego sets to include higher-tech parts. Scott Tucci said he's interested in pieces that would enable him to build a bug "that crawls on wires across a room."

 

You can participate too

Kathy Reuter is the chairman of the First Lego League. She's interested in having more St. Louis area kids get involved in the Lego robot program.

She told YSL.com that she's planning to have a Lego training camp this summer. During the camp, kids will be shown how to design and construct the Lego robot vehicles.

If you or someone at your school would like to participate, you can e-mail Ms. Reuter at reuts@aol.com.

The Lego league competition has expanded throughout the world. In addition to local and state competitions, there is an annual international tournament also, Ms. Reuter said.