December 8, 2005

SCHOOL SCENEin Almaden Valley

Almaden schools excel in Lego Robotics competition

By Michael Ross
Special to the Times

Almaden-based robotics teams were the ones to beat at the First Lego League’s (FLL) annual San Jose qualifying tournament held Saturday at Gunderson High School.

Graystone’s USS Lego squad was named Best Elementary School Team.

Almaden teams won 19 of the 25 awards presented. A total of 51 teams from San Jose (Almaden, Willow Glen and Evergreen areas) and Palo Alto competed. In all, 18 teams advanced to the Northern California Regional tournament, to be held Jan. 14 at San Jose City College. That winner will advance to the international finals to be held in April in Atlanta.

The First Lego League was founded in 1999 by renowned inventor Dean Kamen (Segway etc.) to expose young children to the excitement of robotics and team-based research and competition. Each year, the tasks the robots are to complete revolve around a theme. With this year’s theme of Ocean Odyssey, the student teams and their robots take actions to symbolically ensure the health, diversity and productivity of the world’s oceans for present and future generations. Teams are scored on a wide variety of performance—from the robot’s performance to their team-working skills.

The competition was divided into two parts: Meeting with judges to go over research projects about the oceans and making a Lego robot perform various activities, called a mission.

Teams have been working since September to design autonomous robots based on the Lego Mindstorms kit that must perform a number of specific tasks. In competition, points are awarded for completing all or part of each task. Teams are also rated on various aspects of their robot’s design, teamwork and the quality and creativity of an independent research project presentation. Each year, the FLL tasks and research are centered on a real-world science-related theme.

Eugene Fang of Bret Harte’s J3E (Three Jellyfish and an Eel) team lines up his team’s robot for the next task.

In Saturday’s competition, teams of Castillero Middle School students took home six trophies, including the top honors for Robot Performance (Mechanical Aqua Dolphins), Robot Programming (Revenge of the Lemmings), both Innovative Research awards (first: Robo-Divers; second: Aqua Llamas), Independent Team (S.E.A.L.S.) and Best Middle School Team (Mechanical Aqua Dolphins). In addition, Team TAKK-E, whose core members first competed four years ago while at Simonds Elementary but now attend Castillero and Bret Harte middle schools, won the Judge’s Award.

Robotic Storm, with members from Bret Harte Middle School and Williams Elementary, scored the highest single-run point total of the day and was judged to have the best Robot Design. Three other Bret Harte teams took home four second-place trophies in Robot Performance and Robot Design (Three Jellyfish and an Eel), Robot Programming (Cyberwaves) and Teamwork (JAWS).

Los Alamitos and Williams teams each won two awards: first place in Robot Consistency (JEMATH Reloaded) and Best Rookie Team (Starbots) for Los Alamitos and first place in Research Quality (AwzieMarines) and Best Poster Project (Schowaves) for Williams.

USS Lego of Graystone was named Best Elementary School team.

Two Almaden Country School teams took second-place honors in Research Quality and qualified to move on in the tournament. They are the Mudworms, consisting of Bryan Herr, Christopher Morton, Allison Bruner, Andy Welsh, and Nina Mandracchia for Quality Research Project; and for Most Creative Project, The Piranhas, consisting of Avery Strand, Jacob Spikes, Keegan Eatherton, Aman Agrawal, and Jacob Siporen). All four ACS teams are first year (rookie) teams and are coached by ACS Science teacher Karen Mahoney.