Local students compete in international robotics competition

A rookie team of five local students will be taking a trip to Houston to compete in an international robotics competition in April.

Linda Gordon is one of the coaches of the Liberty team, and she said the students have worked collaboratively to make it to the FIRST Lego Championship in Houston. Gordon said the team will be judged on their robot, a space-themed research project and core values the team should exemplify.

The team first began working on their project at the start of school in fall 2018. Member students spent two hours each week working to build and program their robot and researching their space-centered project.

Gordon said FIRST Lego League is different from other competition not only because the students use LEGOs to build the robots but because the judges focus just as much on “core values.”

“The core values are discovery, respect and inclusion, impact, fairness and integrity and something they call ‘gracious professionalism,’” Gordon explained. “Those are all skills which anybody that is going to be successful in the business world needs.”

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In addition to building and programming their robot and researching for their project, the students took part in activities to build their use of the core values.

“The youngest is deserving of as much respect as the oldest; the most skilled has to honor the contributions of the least skilled,” Gordon said. “One of the ways they approached it was they started by playing some cooperative trust-building games with each other. You can’t win unless everyone is working together. After spending time together, they decided on specific roles.”

With the roles assigned, each student had a specific task to complete for the team to succeed. One student managed the programming of the robot; another managed the research; one oversaw the skit for the presentation; another focused on core values; and yet another focused on building the robot and the project prototype. “What FIRST Lego League is trying to do is provide growth in a more well-rounded way,” Gordon said.

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For their space-themed project, Gordon said the team chose to study the impacts of radiation in space exploration. As part of their research, students spoke with multiple experts, including a plasma physicist, a former nuclear plant safety officer, a retired Army officer who worked in Chem Corp and a former test pilot who flew at high altitudes.

The students took the information they learned and tried to use it to creatively address shielding issues in space travel. “What they proposed was creating an area of the spaceship that is more sheltered than the rest of the ship, and let that be the place that the astronauts sleep – so that they would spend more of their time there,” Gordon said.

Gordon said the plasma physicist who spoke with the group said their idea was a step in the right direction.

“We didn’t solve it, but we studied and we learned a lot,” Gordon said.

The students will present their project in a skit before judges. The other portions of the contest are also performed privately before a judge, other than a small performance portion by the robots.

Gordon said the competition will be an exciting opportunity to not only learn about science and engineering but other countries. The competition will welcome participants from more than 20 countries.

One tradition at the competition is to offer goodie bags with items that represent the team’s origin. “It is all about building relationships between teams, between countries. It’s sort of an ambassador type thing,” Gordon said.

With the expense of the competition, Gordon said the team is working on fundraising efforts to help support team transportation, lodging, meals, entry fee and various activities throughout Houston. Gordon said donations are tax deductible. The team will also send special updates after the competition.

Donations can be made at www.libertasclassicalcommunity.com/donate or by mailing a check to 1817 Katie Circle NW, Hartselle, AL 35640. Checks can be made out to the Libertas Classical Community with Robotics in the “for” line.