Congratulations to the Oxford Wildcats Team 4308 for earning second place in a state tournament for the FIRST LEGO League held Dec. 6 at the Rock Financial Center in Novi.
FIRST LEGO League is a global program created for kids ages 9-14 to get them excited about science and technology.
The Oxford Wildcats competed against 47 other teams that earned a spot at the state tournament by placing in the top 20 percent at regional competitions throughout southeast Michigan and in Windsor, Ontario.
Consisting of students from Oxford Middle School and Leonard Elementary, the team is now eligible for an invitation to the U.S. Open Championship to be held in May at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
Competitions are divided into two parts.
In one part, students must build and program an autonomous robot (made out of LEGO building blocks) that will, in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, complete pre-designed missions.
‘The robot challenge was much more difficult this year than in previous years,? said Scott McBride, who serves as the team’s programming coach along with Lead Coach Don Gilmore and Dawn Kessler, who’s in charge of the project and research.
From gathering items and delivering them to specific locations to opening a window and closing a shade on a model LEGO house, the missions required some creative thinking when it came to designing and programming the robot.
In addition to building a robot, each team had to analyze, research and invent a solution to a problem, then create a clever presentation about their solution to perform before a panel of judges.
This year’s project involved identifying a climate-related problem and coming up with an innovative solution based on data.
To research their project, the students interviewed a farmer, a tilling company owner, local lakefront homeowners Bob and Sue James, a chemistry professor, an agricultural specialist, the education director for the Clinton River Watershed Council, the environmental planner for the Oakland County Drain Commissioner’s Office and a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Station in White Lake.
‘After several attempts to find a solution that didn’t have a patent, the students created their innovative solution which was a three-tiered filtering system to remove fertilizer from surface runoff,? McBride said.
The students created a video of their research project and posted it on YouTube and TeacherTube as a way to share it with others. It can be found by visiting www.youtube.com/watch’v=9vkkC_sPWYs.
At the state tournament, the Oxford Wildcats received perfect scores in Research Quality, Innovation Solution and Creative Presentation, along with Top 5 status in the Programming and Robot Design categories and Top 10 in Robot Performance.