Middle-schoolers get taste of the LEGO challenge
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Zolten Glasso, center, and Dominic DiPasquale, right, of the Providence Heights Alpha School 'Alphabots' team from the North Hills, operate the robot at the FIRST LEGO League robot competition as teammates from left, Julia Burgess, Caroline Beauth, John Galbraith and Connor Herbert look on yesterday at Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center.
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In 2 1/2 minutes, the teams had to elevate and insulate a house; extract an ice core sample and test a levee system.
All on a small competition table, using a robot made out of LEGOs that children, ages 9 to 14, built and programmed.
It was part of the FIRST LEGO League competition hosted yesterday at Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Center in Lawrenceville.
A total of 72 teams of more than 1,000 middle-school students from around the region participated in the robotics and research challenge, whose theme this year was "Climate Connection."
"The goal is to get them excited about science and engineering, not necessarily to win the competition," said Shawn Walk, a fourth-grade teacher at Edgeworth Elementary School in Sewickley.
In the first round, one team he helped coach from Edgeworth Elementary attempted four missions out of a possible 18.
After each run, they returned the robot, which includes light and touch sensors, to a home base on the competition board, and frenetically switched out LEGO accessories that were used to lift, push or carry.
The team finished three missions: "riding" a bike, installing the insulation and testing the levee.
"I didn't feel much pressure," said Peter Hall, 10. "It was kind of like the normal runs at school."
The hard work had been done long before yesterday, said Duff Klaber, 9.
"All you need to know at the table was where to aim it," he said.
When they finished, Mr. Walk high-fived them.
The Edgeworth teams, which have 24 students, normally meet twice each week, but last week they practiced the missions every day after school.
One of the best things about the FIRST LEGO project, Mr. Walk said, is that the computer programming is designed to be easy for younger children to understand. It uses pictures instead of coding.
The competition teaches students problem-solving skills, teamwork, patience and perseverance, Mr. Walk said.
"This stuff, it never goes right the first time," he said. "They have to do it over and over and over again."
Another thing Mr. Walk likes about the robotics program is that it offers competition for children who may not be interested in athletics.
"This is a sport for the mind," he said. "They can be competitive in an academic pursuit."
Indeed, parents and siblings packed into bleachers that lined the competition tables, cheering for their teams with home-made signs, all the while snacking on nachos, hot dogs and pizza.
Some teams had to identify a problem associated with the area's changing climate and then find a solution.
The problem one group of Edgeworth students focused on? How warmer temperatures have led to a shorter winter sports season. The solution: Create artificial snow that won't melt.
At first, the kids thought about using packing peanuts, said Rhonda Schuldt, whose son, Morgan, is on the Edgeworth team. But the students knew that those weren't good for the environment. Then they found biodegradable packing peanuts.
"They process the information so swiftly, and they're so passionate," Ms. Schuldt said. "It's amazing these are fourth- and fifth-graders."
The children made a model of a mountain ski slope, covered it in shaved-down biodegradable peanut snow and used LEGO people to ski and snowboard down it.
"The judge was just amazed," Ms. Schuldt said.
An all-girls team from the Homewood-Brushton YWCA wore tiaras along with their hot pink T-shirts proclaiming their name, La Reine des Abeilles -- French for "queen bees."
The 10 girls, all in seventh or eighth grade, said the competition was both fun and exasperating.
"When we were doing our programming and building our robot, things weren't working, and we lost our confidence," said Paige McIntosh, 14, of Monroeville.
"At times we got frustrated because pieces weren't working together," added Breonna Johnson, 13, of Wilkinsburg. "But we got through it."
It was their first year in the competition.
Teams were judged on programming; the hardware and design of the robot; research and teamwork, said Robin Shoop, director of the Robotics Academy.
"Kids today, they really want things they can get their arms around," Mr. Shoop said. "Abstract just doesn't get it done."
By using LEGOs, the students see how the parts fit together, and they can repeatedly take their robots apart and put them back together.
"To me, it's not about the competition," he said. "It's about putting kids in a position to be scientists."
First Published December 7, 2008 12:00 am
