LEGO League

Saturday was the LEGO League tournament. It's been a wild 7 or so weeks getting ready for it, with about 4 hours of meeting time each week on average.  Don and Jeannine Leo were the coaches, and led the 10 4th and 5th grade boys through the process.  The tournament involves a best-of 3-round performance section, where the teams have 2-1/2 minutes to complete as many "missions" as they can to amass points. They had to build and program the robot to accomplish each mission. They also had to do a team research project and present it to a group of judges.  The theme this year was Biomedical Engineering so our team, the Harding Avenue Elementary Red Robo Docs, learned about robotic surgery and sensors. There's also a teamwork score too.

Overall I think we finished in 5th out of 10 teams.  The kids learned a ton,  had experience working under pressure and as a team, and they had great attitudes throughout.  Their coaches, Don and Jeannine, are to be commended, as are the kids and parents.

The judging area, two teams went at once

Spencer lining the robot up to do the mission he programmed.

Spencer and VT volunteer Lindsay

Fine-tuning things between rounds.

Still smiling!

With Coach Don

Spencer in the hotseat!

Using brainwaves to raise a pingpong ball in a cylinder

Awards ceremony

The judges in red!