Girls know how to make Lego robots.
Just ask the girls from the Blazing Brains Lego robot team out of Hudson, a team that will go to the state championship next month.
On Sunday, the girls were among 300 middle school students from Northeast Ohio taking part in the FIRST LEGO League district tournament at the University of Akron.
“The team morale is pretty up based on how we did,” Blazing Brains team member Brittany Lin, a 13-year-old Hudson Middle School student, said after her team finished one round in the tournament Sunday.
About 30 teams participated in events over the weekend.
The teams came with Lego robots they constructed last year and were given tasks to program into the robot during the competition, such as knocking over a Lego element or pushing an obstacle aside.
“The robot interacts with the environment,” said Kathy Levine, Ohio director of the FIRST LEGO League.
One competition Sunday began as an announcer yelled over a PA system: “Three, two, one, Lego!”
Teams were graded over the two-day tournament on their robot design, a research project on food safety, core values like teamwork and “gracious professionalism and teamwork,” and how their robot performed, Levine said.
Levine said the hope is that more young people will be encouraged “to pursue math and science so we can have more engineers and scientists.”
Dr. Donald Visco, associate dean of undergraduate studies in the College of Engineering at UA, said the university’s participation in the Lego robot tournament is “an investment in the future, not just for UA or the region but for the country.”
“There is a need for engineers in the United States and this is an opportunity to try to help with that,” Visco said.
Twinsburg Dodge School sixth-grader Kshama Girish, 11, a member of the Blue Dolphins team, said she likes the emphasis on working together and good sportsmanship.
“I like how kids show gracious professionalism,” she said.
Elena Falcione, 12, of Hudson, a student at the Ohio Virtual Academy and another member of Blazing Brains, said she likes the challenge of getting the robot to work just right.
“You have to make sure what you are doing is worth it,” said Elena, who is considering an engineering career.
The eight teams that will go to the Ohio State Championship Feb. 4 and 5 in Dayton are
BreadOMatic 5000 from Hudson STEM Alliance; Lordstown Bot Kickers from Lordstown High School; LCCS Lightningbots from Lake Center Christian School;
RoboMinds from HAS Denison Middle School; Blazing Brains from Hudson STEM Alliance; HB Blazerbots from Hathaway Brown School; Monster Maniax from Solon Engineers Club; and LCCS Thunderbots from Lake Center Christian School.
The LCCS Thunderbots and Monster Maniax won the Champions Award.
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.