Building with Legos isn’t so simple anymore ” and neither are the children who play with them.
Curie Elementary and High Tech Middle School students demonstrated this when they emerged victorious from the Southern California Robotics Regional Forum. The four members of the Robomasters team programmed a complicated sequence for their robot to complete, utilizing touch, light and rotation sensors.
Curie Elementary fourth-graders Kevin Murray and Andy Brooks, and High Tech Middle School sixth-graders Mia Sheperd and Katie Brooks, earned 335 points out of a perfect score of 400 to crowd out high-school students for first place. Forty-seven teams competed.
The young team will proceed to the Lego League World Championships in Atlanta April 23 through 29, where they will compete against 70 teams from across the United States and world.
The robot is programmed to autonomously complete an obstacle course in which it must connect a pipeline, set up flags on the playing field, tag only gray fish in a bowl of multicolored fish, retrieve an artifact and release a dolphin from its net, among other tasks. The robot has two and a half minutes to complete as many of the 10 tasks as possible.
Robots competed numerous times on the same course and Robomasters earned 335 points almost 90 percent of the time, according to Marion Brooks, one of the parents who initiated the team and a coach. Robomasters’ performance consistency shone amongst the other teams.
“They were shocked that they won because they were one of the youngest teams there and they were competing against high-schoolers,” Marion said. “To have 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds beat out high-schoolers is surprising.”
Students have a range of devices they can employ to direct the robot. Each robot contains one rotation sensor, one light sensor and two touch sensors that determine its movement. Players can use every function or only a portion. Robomasters decided not to use the light sensor at all because the playing field consists of shades of blue, which complicates programming.
Trial and error shaped Robomasters’ efforts. Team members spent four weeks working to create a faster gear shaft, but finally gave up and reverted back to their original plans.
“It takes a lot of time and effort to figure everything out,” Katie Brooks said.
Programming is only half of the story, however. As part of the competition’s Ocean Odyssey theme, teams also had to devise a practical solution for protecting the ocean. While the students displayed their enjoyment for programming, protecting the ocean hit home.
Robomasters chose to research ways to protect local tide pools. After investigating the issue and meeting with city staff, professionals at Birch Aquarium and the Department of Fish and Game, students are working with the city to install signs warning the public of fragile tide pools.
“I’m very excited,” Andy Brooks said. “It’s a really interesting thing to put up signs so that you’re teaching people and making people aware.”
Each member of the team researched a different aspect of the problem, including mapping the tide-pool zone, examining how animals adapt and considering the effects of human impact and intervention. The team then presented its research before a panel of judges.
Students spent two months and countless hours programming and researching. Sundays were set aside for two to four hours of programming, plus two hours of research during the week.
As Robomasters prepare for the world championship, they’ll have another task ahead of them: fund-raising. The fee to participate is $1,000, plus travel and hotel costs. The competitors are hoping to find a sponsor.
Robomasters haven’t emerged from the woodwork, though; they’re carrying on a legacy that five University City students set two years ago. Jeb Brooks, RJ Sheperd, Chris and Laura Decorte and Justin Ripley placed second at the world championships in 2004.
After the glory has faded, the older students are still active in robotics. They recently built a robotic music stand for a 14-year-old choir singer with disabilities.