Students on a Utica Community Schools FIRST LEGO League Robotics team are on the move, and they have an international award to prove it.
A Crissman Elementary team captured the Rising Star Award recently at the Toronto International FIRST Lego League Tournament.
The award is presented by tournament judges to recognize a team with a unique blend of effort, performance and dynamics.
Find out what's happening in Shelby-Uticafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Overall, the seven-member "Gummy Guardians" team placed 12th in the robot competition portion of the tournament out of 72 international teams competing. In addition, they were part of an elite group of 14 teams that earned a score of 500 points or better during the robot portion of the tournament.
FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Robotics introduces younger students (ages 9-14 in North America and up to age 16 in other countries) to real-world mathematics, science, technology and engineering challenges by conducting a research project and building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface. FLL teams compete within a theme, with this year's challenge being "Nature's Fury."
Find out what's happening in Shelby-Uticafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Team members are Madelyn Brown, Aidan Dupke, Samantha Lewis, Carter O'Donnell, Katie Roy, Cheyenne Smith, Nicholas Tobin. The team's mentor is Alexander Roy and they are coached by Pascal and Amy Roy.
Team coaches noted that the Crissman Elementary team is comprised of students ages 10 to 12 who very ably competed against international teams with students as old as 16.
This is the second year a Crissman Elementary team has competed in an international FIRST Lego League Robotics tournament. The team qualified after capturing two second place awards in the Michigan finals tournament.
FIRST represents For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, and is an international science, technology and robotics program created by inventor Dean Kamen. At the high school level, the FIRST robotics tournament pairs business mentors with students to create and program a working robot that competes in a high-energy, sports-like tournament.
Lego Robotics introduces younger students to the excitement of the FIRST competition.
