Students from West Shore’s FIRST LEGO League robotics team, Green Goblin Galactic Guardians, have won the alternate bid to FIRST’s LEGO League State Championship on Jan. 23 after their name was drawn from various Central Florida alternate teams. They will be joining their sister team, Seas the Future, who won one of the 20 state championship invitations on Jan. 11 to compete in the championship at SeaWorld Orlando in February. Principal Burt Clark, who has experience with the program from his time at Rockledge High School, congratulated the students on their efforts and success.
“I’ve been at other schools that have these teams and I know how hard they were,” Clark said. “I have watched and been to competitions, and watched all the work that goes into it. So considering how young our team is, [I am] so super proud and excited about what our robotics team can continue to accomplish.”
FIRST, which stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,” was founded in 1989 by engineer Dean Kamen with the goal of inspiring young people to learn skills to be confident in their careers through a team-based environment. According to FIRST’s official website, the organization has grown into the world’s leading non-profit for STEM education, with over 3.2 million program participants globally. FIRST LEGO League is geared towards fifth through eighth grade students and collaborates with LEGO to provide an educational program that teachers can purchase and use to coach the teams. Coaches from outside the educational field also participate, like engineers who coach students with their field-based skills.
“I got involved a couple of years ago when my son was in fifth grade attending West Melbourne School for Science and joined the program,” West Shore robotics program coach Mike Rivera said. “I was asked to help coach and the team made it to state that year. As an engineer myself, I try to coach the kids on how to approach problem-solving and to use a systematic approach when iterating to develop solutions.”
The students are guided by the coaches in both aspects of the competition: the Robot Game and the Innovation Project.
“So this year, [the Robot Game] is called Submerged, where it’s a bunch of missions that are themed underwater,” eighth grader and team member Michael Reynolds said. “There’s a bunch of missions with different functions. You might have to push a lever, or you might have to raise something.”
In the Robot Game, teams autonomously run a Spike Prime robot for two and a half minutes across a mission field filled with LEGO objects, setting out to complete as many missions as possible before time runs out.Spectators watch as the robot spins and speeds across the board, acquiring mission points.
However, the Robot Game is not the only aspect of the competition. Teams are also required to complete a project based on the season theme. As part of the innovation project, each student contributes to the team project, adding their own research and ideas. The presentation is shown to a panel of judges and a Q&A session is held, where teams then present their accumulated knowledge of the subject and showcase their new solutions. This year, teams were tasked with innovating a solution to more effective ocean discovery methods, so students in Seas the Future created a camera that takes photos underwater and uses artificial intelligence to identify creatures.
“[The camera is] going to be so far down that light doesn’t reach the bottom [of the ocean],” said seventh grader and Seas the Future member Alejandro Rivera, “Our camera uses AI to augmentate it and look uses low light to make it brighter, and so the scientists up above the water can research it all.”
All of these aspects of the competition are scored individually but added together to get a total picture of the team. The student’s behavior towards other teams, referred to as Core Values, are weighed heavily, and add up to the final score when combined with points accumulated for the Robot Game, consistency of the robot, the robot design process, and the Innovation Project. The judges then decide who gets the bids to the state championship based on these assessments. For the two West Shore teams, winning the bid at regionals meant an advancement unlike anything they had ever done before.
“Making it to states is fairly hard, because you have to first get a bid to qualifiers and then get a bid at regionals,” sophomore student mentor Daniel Mirell said. “[This is the] first year that West Shore makes it to states. This is an amazing accomplishment, and I’m proud of what both teams have done.”
The Green Goblin Galactic Guardians, this bid waited two weeks after the initial competition to find out if they were selected to go. The announcement was emailed to the team coaches, and students found out shortly afterwards.
“It was unexpected of us going to states, since most of us were just rookies and it was a first year for most of us,” eighth grader and Green Goblin Galactic Guardian team member Skylar Ludovice said.
“I’m so proud of this group of kids,” coach Laura Reynolds said. “Only one of the 6 had prior experience with the LEGO League. It’s crazy how far they’ve come. The fact that they made it to regionals was a huge accomplishment. When I was told their alternate bid was upgraded to an official bid to states…I couldn’t stop smiling.”
West Shore will be sending both teams to the state championship to compete among the 86 best teams from across the state of Florida, coming from schools in Tallahassee, Destin, Miami, Jacksonville, and even the Keys to compete and spectate at the event. Since it will once again be held at SeaWorld Orlando, teams will also be able to enjoy a day at the theme park if they wish to do so. Anyone is welcome to come and spectate the Robot Games and encourage West Shore robotics as they face the competition head on.
By Daniella Fassman