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Lego Lakers
- Men in Black Robotics Team
Contact: David Alan Wolters
16668 Northwood Trail
616.844.6909
Spring Lake, MI 49456
coach@legolakers.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 7,
2008
Spring Lake LEGO Robotics Team
Wins FIRST PLACE OVERALL at Regional Tournament
(Spring Lake, Michigan) The Men in
Black, a LEGO Robotics team made up of ten students from
Spring Lake and coached by a Spring Lake parent, took top
honors at the regional FIRST LEGO League tournament in
Grandville on Saturday. The team scored FIRST PLACE OVERALL
out of 27 teams from across Western Michigan. The team also
won the FIRST PLACE award for Innovative Programming of
their robot. This earned them the opportunity to advance to
the State tournament to be held in Flint, Michigan on
December 13.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the
kids!” exclaimed coach David Wolters. “They were judged in
four separate competition categories and in order to win
first place overall they had to be extremely strong in all
four.”
This year’s competition theme is
“Climate Connections” and teams worldwide had roughly eight
weeks to prepare for tournaments. At tournaments teams are
judged in four categories: Teamwork, Technical Design and
Programming, Robot Performance on the competition table, and
presentation of their findings of a Research Project. Each
category counts equally toward the final overall score.
The day started off on a low note with
their robot scoring a very low 20 out of 400 points on its
first run. The team had to quickly regain its composure and
move on to judging rooms where the other categories are
scored. Subsequent runs of the robot proved better but not
as high as the team had been achieving in practice sessions.
“We have some work to do on the
robot over the next week but they’ll figure it out” said
Wolters. “Fortunately, the kids kept their focus and didn’t
let the robot performance distract them from the other
categories. They scored near-perfect scores in all three.”
For research projects, teams were
given the challenge to learn about a problem in their
community that is caused by climate and then come up with an
innovative solution to that problem and share it with their
community. After meeting with Annis Water Resources
Institute in Muskegon and The Army Corps of Engineers in
Grand Haven, The Men in Black designed Bubble Buddy, a
supplemental buoyancy system for Great Lakes freighters
which can help ships enter harbors that are shallow due to
fluctuating water levels. A short film that the team made
can be viewed on YouTube and also the team web site
www.LegoLakers.com
FIRST’s (For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and Technology) mission is to design
accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence,
knowledge and life skills while motivating young people to
pursue opportunities in science, technology and engineering.
The team was generously sponsored by
Integrated Grinding & Machine Specialties and Klever
Innovations. More information on the team and FIRST LEGO
League can be found on the team’s web site
www.LegoLakers.com
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