Nov. 15 was a busy day for local kids in the First Lego League (FLL) program. They got up early, but instead of heading to Durango, where regionals are typically held, they traveled to Ridgway. This year’s regional tournament was produced by the Pinhead Institute, of Telluride, a Smithsonian affiliate, the local sponsor of regional FLL teams. Head coach for the Nucla team Jeanna Jasperson told the Forum Nov. 16 the West End’s team has qualified for the state tournament for the second year in a row. She said she couldn’t be more proud of students.
The FLL team is a robotics team, and the competition includes four parts. The first is a Lego challenge, for which kids program a robot to complete predetermined missions. The second part is the innovation project, for which they respond to a prompt. Students must carefully follow that prompt, and this year’s theme was “Unearthed.” The kids had to identify a problem archeologists face and propose a solution that could help.
Thirdly, kids had to explain their robot in front of a panel of judges, including its design. Lastly, they’re judged on core values, basically professionalism, how they interact with each other and other teams during competition. They were observed throughout the day. Core values is also about even distribution of work, being a good team member, something important in FLL, Jasperson said.
She said students’ programming was very high-level. The kids worked with Pybricks Code, an introductory coding program that leads to a more advanced program called Python. That these kids can use such a program deserves applause, Jasperson said, but their communication and research were very advanced too.
Responding to the prompt portion, West End students wanted to invent a container to preserve delicate artifacts, possibly found in glacier regions. They had a Zoom call with archeologist Jeremy Omvig, of Alpine Archeology of Montrose. They used an engineering design process for a container to store artifacts, a container free of oxygen, but filled with nitrogen. In this way any artifacts found in melting glaciers could be saved carefully.
The local team studied the periodic table, designed their container, talked with experts about things like valves, regulators and cartridges. The fourth-through-eighth graders were discussing pressure and volume, making calculations and asking chemical engineer Melissa Ellerbeck, of Solvay Minerals, for support.
With nine on the team, three are returning members. Ava Mock, Braiden Weimar and Emily Johnson participated last year. New this year are Presley Bachman, Vivian Cooper, Willow Souza, Elijah Comber and Alden Mock. Jasperson, assisted by Matthew Lagoe, said the regional competition over the weekend felt tougher this year, and returning kids agreed. There were 13 teams vying for three spots at the state tournament.
Jasperson said the West End has some younger members, but the team held its own against others made up of mostly seventh and eighth graders.
“They’re a pretty serious group,” she said. “I couldn’t have been prouder of their accomplishments and handling of stress.”
Jasperson agreed the work does prepare them for the future. She said it allows them to realize this is something they can actually do. They created an invention, consulted with professionals in the industry, and then made it happen.
They now travel to CU-Denver Dec. 6 for the state tournament.
“The kids are so excited,” Jasperson said. “They worked so hard. They have spent a lot of time on innovation.”
She added in the future, when they get to classes like chemistry and physics, they’ll have a foundation that reminds them of why they study these things. They’ll have used it.
Also qualifying for the state tournament is the Ridgway team and also Ouray.
