Westford Youth Robotics Club Brings Two Trophies Home

Westford Youth Robotics is a 4-H club that focuses on building Lego (Mindstorms NXT) robots, programming, and competing against other robotic teams within FIRST LEGO League. FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is a global organization which motivates kids to pursue math, science and engineering skills.

This year the Westford Youth Robotics 4-H Club had their best season of all time. The WYRA entered three teams; The Green Team (my team) , The StormGears, and The Blue Team in regional qualifier at Blackstone Valley Tech in Upton, MA and all three came home with trophies. The Westford teams swept the Innovations & Strategy award category with the StormGears, The Green Team, and The Blue Team taking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, respectively.

On top of that great showing the StormGears also took 3rd place in the Innovative Solution Award category and 3rd place in the Robot Performance Award. At the regional tournament there were more than 60 teams who participated in regional competition. The StormGears team and The Green team also won golden tickets to FLL state Championship which was held at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester on December 17, 2011. The Green team brought home not just one but two of the most sought after trophies in youth robotics.

Participation in robotics club teaches kids how to solve real world problems using math, science skills and fruits of their imagination, creativity, perseverance and great team ethics. Another key component to participate and compete in First Lego League is to work on a project which utilizes technology and engineering skills to build a robot to perform required project tasks. The project topic of my team was “How to prevent bacterial contamination of bagged salad”. We worked to find a solution that would disinfect the vegetables which were getting washed before packaging. After a well fought regional championship the Westford teams had a good run at the Massachusetts state competition. Both the Green Team and the StormGears performed well to qualify for state competition with a well thought out project and robot performance. The Green Team robot performed almost flawlessly all day, starting out in 1st place after the first robotics performance round, dropping to 3rd place and then storming back to take 2nd place overall and bringing home the first FLL LEGO trophy to Westford in six years that WYR 4-H club has participated. The green team didn’t stop there however, as the judges also awarded them the runner-up trophy in the programming category. Both trophies are pictured following the article.

 

Behind the success of this club is the ingenuity and dedication of Mr. Chris Nichols an accountant. Mr. Nichols is a soft spoken, hard working individual who founded this club six years ago in Westford, MA. He is also the head coach and runs weekly meetings at his home, mentoring kids for FLL competition. In the past few years the popularity of this club has grown tremendously as over 30 kids from Westford and surrounding towns take interest. This year many thanks also goes to volunteers; Mr. Prabhu Navali and Rishan Shah a high school student for mentoring The Green team kids, Ms. Roopa Mathur mentored The StormGears team kids in robot design and project management. Mr. Nichols and

parent volunteers directed the teams as necessary and kept them on track to have fun and winning attitude.

If interested in learning more about Westford youth Robotics club, visit club’s website http://www.westfordyra.org/Home.aspx. You can learn more about 4-H at www.mass4h.org.