The Coast Episcopal School Robo-Raiders, seven energetic, enthusiastic and engaged sixth-graders from the 70-year-old independent school in Long Beach, brought home a first-place win in Core Values win at the state-wide FIRST LEGO League Competition held in Pearl, Miss., on Feb. 12
One of 21 teams from around Mississippi participating in the competition, the Robo-Raiders placed seventh overall in the robotics competition, after completing three, hard-fought rounds.
Pleased with the school’s recognition over the weekend, CES Makerspace Will Ashley is particularly proud of his team’s recognition in Core Values, an award given to the team that “displays extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit, knows they can accomplish more together than they could as individuals, and shows each other and other teams respect at all times.”
This marks the third year of participation for the Long Beach independent in the international competition, and this year’s competition marks another stellar showing for the school and its students, having brought home the Innovation Project Award in 2019.
The theme for this year’s competition was ‘‘Cargo Connect’, with teams re-imagining the global transportation system and exploring ways of improving how desired goods are accessed and delivered, making all communities more connected.
The opportunity to compete at the state level follows Coast Episcopal School’s success in the regional qualifier held as a virtual event two weeks ago. Coast Episcopal School entered two of the eight teams that participated in the regional event: the Robo-Raiders Team (comprised of sixth graders) and the Silly Seven Team (comprised of fifth and sixth graders). Both teams’ robots were judged on four aspects:
1) A Robotic Game, in which each team has two, five-minute attempts to solve as many missions as possible
2) Innovation Project – each team researched a topic and developed an innovative solution
3) Core Values – each team judged on its representation of First Lego League Core Values of Discovery, Impact, Innovation, Inclusion, Teamwork and Fun!
4) Robot design – the teams’ code, design of the robot and overall game plan on how to “attack” the Robot Game.
At the regional qualifier, CES’ Robo-Raiders were awarded the “Robot Design Award” where, according to the judges, the team “used outstanding programming principles and solid engineering practices to develop a robot that is mechanically sound, durable, efficient and highly capable of performing challenge missions.” The team was then selected to advance to the Mississippi Lego League Championship, where the Long Beach Independent School’s team will be one of 21 participating in the competition.
Coast Episcopal School’s three-year participation in FIRST Lego League is overseen and directed by Will Ashley, Director of CES’s Seemann Makerspace.
“First Lego League is a wonderful organization that helps students become more interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) by mixing robotics with real-world problems,” Ashley says. “Additionally, the competition provides the students with important life skills such as public speaking, collaboration, and how to deal with setbacks, all of which correlates well with the mission of our makerspace. Over the course of the season, our students have learned how to program a robot to solve complex missions, and they dove into the yearly theme, which led them to better understand problems that exist in our world and encouraged them to find innovative solutions. First Lego League provides a safe place for students to learn without consequence and reinforces the concept that a failure or setback is simply the next learning opportunity.”
Ashley also praised Robotics Team Co-Coach Emily Anne Pertuit for her expertise that helped guide the CES Teams to their successes.
