MUSCATINE, Iowa–Even before students make it to high school and experience the excitement of engineering challenges on the Fire Island Robotics Team, the FIRST Lego League gives them the chance to hone their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, skills in a fun, competitive way. This year, 10 students, Jeyadev Balachandar, Draven Baldwin, Henry Engelkemier, and Owen Lussman from Saints Mary and Mathias Catholic School; Micah Alvidrez, Lyam Cummings, Jakob Regennitter, Owen True, and Hunter Weggen from Grant Elementary School, and Gabriel Alvidrez from Susan Clark Junior High School, along with volunteer coaches Julie Engelkemier and Ramya Ramachandran formed a new FIRST Lego League team, the Muscateers. Dec. 10, all the work the students have put in for their rookie season went on display in their participation at the FIRST Lego League qualifier held at the Putnam Museum in Davenport.
As part of the FIRST Lego League Challenge, students worked both to build and code a robot capable of performing different tasks and to create an Innovation Project focused on energy use. Twice each week beginning in September, students came together to work on their robot and the code that powers it and to put together a project explaining phantom energy use (when a plugged in device not in use continues to consume electricity) and ways people can reduce it to lower energy consumption and fossil fuel emissions. Students worked with local guest speakers to identify the topic for their Innovation Project and potential solutions to the problem they identified.
Though students had never done anything quite like preparing their robot or putting together their Innovation Project, Ramachandran found they rose to the challenge. “The kids started on the program not knowing what to expect but did extremely well and placed sixth in the robot games,” she shared. “Their robot and code worked consistently throughout all the rounds.”
In addition to placing in the robotics competition and receiving points for their Innovation Projects and conduct during the competition, teams could also win awards focused or specific aspects of the competition. the Muscateers won the best robot design award for their efforts. “We didn’t progress to state this year, but we are proud of the team’s performance, as they are learning everything for their first time,” Ramachandran said. “More than learning something new, this initiative gives a flavor of real-life experience to all kids on what they are going to experience in their academic life, work, ups and downs, the competitive mindset; it’s a whole new learning process.”
Though the Muscateers’ competition season has ended for this year, they hope to continue providing stimulating STEM opportunities for students age 10 through 13 in Muscatine. As the team grows and establishes itself, Ramachandran thanked Chris Hoffman with Fire Island Robotics for helping mentoring herself and fellow coach Engelkemier, Reynolds Engineering and Hoffman for allowing them the use of indoor practice space; and Bayer of Muscatine for the grant that allowed them to fund the team for its first year.
