LETTS, Iowa–For the second year in a row, the Louisa-Muscatine Junior-Senior High School Lego League Team had what it took to make it to the state competition. This year, nine students in grades five through eight worked together to create and code a robot that could stand up to the challenges of this year’s competition.
Beginning in the fall, students worked together to create a robot that could handle the challenges of running a Lego League First mission, a sort of obstacle course that includes launching, pushing, pulling, and flipping actions. Students started with a pre-built robot and designed attachments for it. Using an iPad, they also coded the robot so that the robot could carry out commands and use its attachments correctly. Students also put together an Innovations Project, which looks at how some of the concepts from coding and designing robots can help solve real-world problems.
According to Lego League Team Advisor Bethany Erickson, students competed in the virtual Lego League Challenge Competition Dec. 9, 2021. Based on their robot mission score, robot design score, innovation project score, and how well they demonstrated the core values of discovery, fun, impact, inclusion, innovation, and teamwork, the team advanced to the state competition Jan. 22.
The state competition consisted of another virtual contest hosted by Iowa State University. Though Louisa-Muscatine’s team did not progress to the national level, they received recognition as Global Innovation Award Qualifier Finalists.
All of the students felt quite proud of their accomplishments. “Maybe as a team, we have our imperfections, but we all have our strengths and something to learn,” shared Cooper Wagner, a sixth grader.
They also believed they learned a lot from the experience of preparing for this year’s competitions. Sixth grader Madi Smith explained that she particularly enjoyed learning more about coding, while Cooper added that he felt the team had really improved their problem-solving skills. Fifth grader Caydence Smith also thought that all the teamwork the competition required helped her and others improve their cooperation.
Many of the students on the Louisa-Muscatine Lego League Team have participated for multiple years and look forward to doing even better at next year’s competitions. Their plans for next year include creating a more intricate and customized robot and to developing greater consistency between runs so that they can rack up high scores.
Though the First Lego League competition season has ended for this year, the current team members have already started getting excited for next year and hope many other students who have never tried it before will join them. “A lot of kids think it’s just playing with Legos, but it’s not just playing with Legos,” stressed Caydence, who knows those who try it will build many useful skills.
Cooper also pointed out how it can help kids fulfill their fantasies about creating fascinating machines. “When I was a kid, I always dreamed about robots, and I never dreamed I’d get to make and code them!” he enthused.
