Sixth graders at Riverside Intermediate School are learning valuable science, engineering, and math skills with Lego robots. Members of the school’s Lego Robotics teams demonstrated their machines to the Plymouth School Board last week. They also discussed their recent competition at the First Lego League Qualifying Tournament in Granger.
According to the teams’ coach Wade Mattis, the students are given project specifications in August and then have three to four months to put together a large project. This year’s theme was hydrodynamics.
As part of the challenge, teams had to complete various water-themed missions with their robots, requiring them to flip, push, or move different objects on a course. However, the students also had to come up with a solution to some sort of problem in the human water cycle. The Riverside students came up with a system of gutters, pipes, and storage tanks, to irregate crops with rain water, rather than ground water.
School Board President Todd Samuelson congratulated the students on their project. “The teamwork that you’re developing now applies across the board in whatever you’re going to do,” he told them. “So congratulations to all of you and all your parents for allowing them to do this because I know, I’m assuming, what it takes of transportation and investment of time and balancing out school work and all of that. That’s awesome, so keep it up.”
Mattis explained that the Lego Robotics team began four or five years ago, thanks to a grant from 3M. But he said the team is still looking to advance to its first state championship.
