First-time team wins Lego League title
A four-member team making its first start in First Lego League
competition won the Missouri state title last month. That
earned them a place at national FLL meet at the Georgia Dome
in Atlanta.
The
four members of the Children of the Square Table team knew
each other from their west St. Louis County neighborhood.
But, all attend different schools.
The members are Brian Roth, Ian Pittwood, Vineeth Bhuvanagiri
and Linsey Button.
Brian is a 5th grader at Truman Elementary School. Ian is
a 4th grader at Ridge Meadows. Vineeth is a 6th grader at
LaSalle Springs Middle. And Linsey is a 6th grader at Selvridge
Middle.
Ten-year-old Brian said he's worked with Legos since he
was 4 or 5 and has "tons of Lego pieces." But, his interest
in programming the "brain" of Lego robots was sharpened last
summer at a camp on St. Louis Community College's Meramec
campus.
The
team (l to r): Brian Roth, Ian Pittwood, Vineeth Bhuvanagiri
and Linsey Button |
After the camp, he told his parents he wanted to participate
in First Lego League competition. But, his school didn't have
an advisor and he didn't even have any teammates.
It turned out school sponsorship wasn't a must. And he only
needed three other kids to make up a team. He and his friends
held their first planning meeting last September.
That gave them only three months to build the robot, program
its RCX brain and teach it to run a complicated obstacle course.
Everything turned out just fine as the Square Table team
won the Director's Award at the state FLL tournament early
in December. They competed against 27 other teams.
During each of the three rounds of the competition, the robot
was handled by two team members. Brian and Ian ran the first
round. Vineeth and Linsey handled the second and Brian and
Linsey did the third round.
By winning, they got an automatic bid to the World Festival
meet in Atlanta on April 27-29.
Brian said the path to the state championship wasn't always
a smooth one.
Because none of the team members had much Lego robot experience,
he said the first brain programming efforts were "pathetic."
Nine-year-old Ian Pittwood said the team never did get the
robot's gears to operate correctly. The machine tended to
"drift" on some legs of the obstacle course.
Like Brian, Ian said his basement "was flooded with Lego
pieces" but he had no robot experience. He said his biggest
Lego project was building a "big Ferrari car about a foot
long and six inches high."
Twelve-year-old Vineeth Bhuvanagiri said he has built about
20 Lego kits. "But, I just made each kit and I've got them
on display in my room. I didn't play with Lego pieces," he
said.
He added he'd done some programming at the Rockwood Center
for Creative Learning.
He said he's also taken apart broken computers and printers
"to see what was inside."
Eleven-year-old Linsey Button said her only experience with
building things was "making castles out of Styrofoam."
She said her work on the robot was her first effort at programming.
"But, I'm interested in doing more," she said.
Linsey said she's used to working with computers, mostly
playing games. She said her favorite game website is www.addictinggames.com.
Her favorites are Bubble Trouble and Water Slides.
Brian's dad, Matt, helped build a competition table in the
Roth's basement. That way the kids could try out their robot
on the same course they'd have at the state meet.
Right after the state tournament victory, the team was back
at work on its robot. They want to make improvements before
the national tournament.
The first order of business was to find out why the robot
"drifted" and strayed off course. They are checking the programming,
the light sensors, the gears and the track treads.
The Square Table team also is looking forward to entering
the FLL competition again next year. All members still will
be eligible in the 9-to-14-age classification. (For more
FLL information, visit http://www.usfirst.org/jrobtcs/flego.htm)
Brian said the team members picked up "some pretty good design
ideas" from teams in this year's tournament.
