On Saturday, 4 December, the 6
students in the 8th grade honors science class joined 15
other teams from Missouri and Illinois to culminate the 2004 season
for area FIRST Lego League teams. FIRST Lego League (FLL) introduces
young people from ages 9 to 14 to the fun and excitement of science
and technology while building self-confidence, knowledge and life
skills. Each season over 40,000 students from 14 countries are
challenged to think like scientists and engineers.
In mid-October, The River City Robots, a local
high school FIRST robotics competition team, provided $600 to
sponsor a St. Paul FLL team. Since then the St. Paul Team known as
the River City Junior Robots, spent two class periods a week and two
after school periods per week to prepare for the competition. The
team built a Lego Mindstorms robot to autonomously navigate a 4 by 8
foot playing field to perform a variety of tasks. They also prepared
an oral report on how the accessibility of our school can be
improved using high tech solutions.
At the competition, held at Florissant
Valley Community College and sponsored by the St. Louis Science
Center, the team presented their research results, described the
robot design and design process, and what they learned from
participation in FLL to panels of judges. The robot performance was
demonstrated during the best-of-three competition rounds. After the
first round the St Paul team was in third place with 192 points
trailing last year’s winners, the Rolla Regional Robotics team, and
runners up, the X-Bots, by 45 points and 9 points respectively.
Bolstered by its early success, the St. Paul team moved to the
second round with the utmost self-confidence. The team scored 210
points in the second round to carry them into second place. The team
now trailed the Rolla team by 27 points. In the third round, the
team could not better their best score of 210 points and finished in
fourth place behind the X-Bots (237), the Robotic Maniacs from
Collinsville (245) and the two-time winner, Rolla (247).
The
team did not win any of the several awards presented in the closing
ceremony but everyone had a good time and appeared to have learned a
lot. A special thanks goes to Carol Schulte and Dave Schnieder for
helping with the chaperoning duties during the competition and the
parents who picked up their kids at 4:30 PM on the days we worked
after hours.
The
team did not win any of the several awards presented in the closing
ceremony but everyone had a good time and appeared to have learned a
lot. A special thanks goes to Carol Schulte and Dave Schnieder for
helping with the chaperoning duties during the competition and the
parents who picked up their kids at 4:30 PM on the days we worked
after hours.
