Most members of the Nano Ninjas robot-building team want
to be engineers or scientists. They think the First Lego
League robot competition helps them on those career paths.
Ten-year-old Daniel Wiese of Ladue said he wants to be
an engineer. He said preparation for the recent St. Louis
regional tournament made him learn about the planning process.
"We all had to research, design, program and construct
the robot and making sure it worked," the home-schooled
5th grader said.
Ten-year-old Ian Maupin of Rock Hill is a home-schooled
6th grader. He said he wants to be either a scientist, engineer
or computer programmer.
He thought the best thing part of the robot competition
was the chance to work with kids as a team. Ian said, "I
liked working every week with the guys and improving our
robot."
The First Lego League competition brings together teams
of young kids who build robots and program them to do complex
tasks. The Nano Ninjas were a first-year team.
The St. Louis regional meet was held early in December
at the St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley.
All teams built and programmed robots that performed on
a large, flat table with six "mission" stations.
The overall Champion's Award went to a team from Columbia,
Mo., the CRTs.
But, other awards went to teams whose entries were judged
superior in different ways. For instance, there were awards
for Robot Design, Innovative Solution and Project Presentation.
The Nano Ninja team won the Research Quality Award. Their
entry included a research report on using nanotechnology
to make Kevlar clothing more comfortable and effective.
Kevlar is now used primarily to shield police and soldiers
from gunshot wounds. But, the material is fairly rigid,
hot and bulky.
The Nano Ninja's research was on development of a "Nano
Liquid Armor." Clothing would be treated with a special
liquid that stiffened to give Kevlar protection only when
a threat occurred. Otherwise, the cloth stayed light and
flexible.
Nine-year-old Joel Maupin is the brother of Ian. Joel said
he did a lot of the research into use of nanotechnology
to protect clothing. He said he's also interested in being
in next year's First Lego League competition because the
2007 theme is energy.
Joel said he wants to be an engineer when he grows up.
Matt and Will Wolfe of Ladue are another pair of brothers
on the Nano Ninjas. Twelve-year-old Matt is a 6th grader
at MICDC while 10-year-old Will is a 4th grader at The Wilson
School.
Matt said he wants to be an auto designer and Will is planning
to be an engineer.
The Nano Ninjas built a model of the tournament test board
on the dining room table at the Wolfe's home. Matt said
he constructed the "mission" station towers and did "a little
bit of everything" while their entry was being made.
Will said he designed a lighter lifting arm for the robot.
An earlier version was too heavy for the robot to lift,
he said.
Nine-year-old Will Morton of St. Louis and 10-year-old
Andrew Long of Chesterfield were the other two Nano Ninjas.
Will is a 3rd grader at Kretz Elementary School. He said
the First Lego League competition is helping in his efforts
to be an inventor. "I'm learning to do programming on the
computer and how to build things."
Andrew is a 5th grader at Ascension School in Chesterfield.
He said he wants to be either a scientist or an engineer.
He said the robot work helps "improve my computer skills"
and construction knowledge.
The seven team members divided themselves into two smaller
teams to work on different parts of their entries at the
same time. They built three different robots. That way,
the kids could do special programming for the different
"mission" stations.
Then, before the regional competition, they reprogrammed
all the "mission" instructions into one robot. Ian Maupin
said the "tournament robot" needed modifications to make
sure it could handle all the different movements required
to run the course.
Ian and Joel said they were both hoping to get their personal
robots as Christmas presents. They said, if it didn't happen
at Christmas, they each have another opportunity this month.
Both have birthdays in January. Joel's is on Jan. 16, and
Ian's on Jan. 20.
(To learn more about the First Lego program, visit www.firstlegoleague.org
or contact Kathie Reuter at Reuts@aol.com.)
