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Members of Martinsville Middle School’s Team Da’Voltz are (front row, from left): Ryan Hopkins, 13; Antonio Cicelske, 13; Grant Boaz, 12; (back row) Devante Martin, 12; Elivia Wimmer, 13; D.J. King, 12; and Michael Mason, 12. The robot they built sits in the foreground on an obstacle course. |
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Tuesday, January 8, 2008
By AMANDA BUCK - Bulletin Staff Writer
They put in time over the summer, stayed after school as many as five days a week and got together at each other’s houses, all in the name of competition.
But members of Martinsville Middle School’s Team Da’Voltz weren’t honing athletic skills. Instead, the seven students, who recently placed second out of 76 teams in the First Lego League state finals, were exercising their minds.
That doesn’t mean they don’t feel like sports champions, though.
“With all the hours we’ve put in, we’ve probably worked like Super Bowl athletes,” joked coach and MMS teacher Amy Sabarre.
The seventh- and eighth-graders who make up Team Da’Voltz have been working together since the summer, when most of them took part in a robotics camp at the school. With the help of Sabarre and Jones Oliver, also a middle school teacher, the students built a battery-powered robot out of Legos and programmed it to complete an obstacle course.
In addition, the students did a research project that followed this year’s theme, solving the world’s “Energy Puzzle.” For its project, Team Da’Voltz analyzed ways to save energy and develop alternate energy sources at CPFilms, a Fieldale company that makes coated window film.
Although their approach to the research project and the design of their robot were unique, the obstacle course itself, called the field, and the Energy Puzzle challenge were addressed by all the students who took part in this year’s Lego League. According to Sabarre, about 10,000 teams in 44 countries participated in this year’s program.
This year’s course depicts houses, an oil platform, a power plant and other structures that the robot must manipulate. All 340 teams in Virginia who competed in this year’s contest were judged on their robots’ success in completing missions on the course in a two-and-a-half minute period. Each team also was judged on its research project, a teamwork challenge and technical design.
The MMS students recently put their yellow robot through its paces while recounting their success at the state competition.
As team member Ryan Hopkins, 13, explained, the robot “has different attachments to do different tasks on the table.”
The attachments, like the robot, are built from Lego materials. All of the robot’s maneuvers are governed by programming that the students coded on the computer. A sensor on the robot receives that information, which is stored on a computer chip.
Although the programming was done in advance, the robot’s movements never can be certain, Oliver said as he watched the students take the robot through several missions.
“You get a sense of how frustrating this can be because the robot is not always consistent in exactly what it does,” he said.
After winning first place overall at a regional competition last month in Stuart, Team Da’Voltz traveled to the state competition at James Madison University on Dec. 8 and 9. There, the team came in third in robot performance with a score of 390 out of a possible 400. Strengths in teamwork and research lifted the students to second in the overall competition, Sabarre said.
“There are all kinds of ways you gain points and lose points,” Oliver said. “It’s a very complicated scoring.”
In addition to the robotics course, the students demonstrated teamwork by building a working windmill out of uncooked marshmallows and spaghetti in only five minutes. They couldn’t prepare for that challenge in advance, Sabarre said.
They demonstrated their research by making brochures with energy-saving tips, performing a skit and completing a PowerPoint presentation. They even sang a “Go Green” song about saving energy.
The students said being part of Lego League was fun and educational.
“We learned how to communicate better with people,” said Antonio Cicelske, 13. And that “teamwork gets you far in life,” added Devante Martin, 12.
The research project, which the students presented to officials at CPFilms, taught them “ways to save energy and help the environment,” said Elivia Wimmer, 13.
Sabarre and Oliver said they are pleased with the team’s achievements this year, especially how well they did in the state finals.
“The competition at state is fierce,” Sabarre said.
“We’re very proud of these kids,” Oliver added.
In addition to Hopkins, Cicelske, Martin and Wimmer, members of Team Da’Voltz are Grant Boaz, 12; D.J. King, 12; and Michael Mason, 12. |
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