“3 – 2 – 1 – LEGO!” These words could be heard over and over from the announcers at Mukwonago High School on Saturday, November 18, as they counted down to the start of a match for the 36 FIRST Lego League (FLL) Teams from around southeastern Wisconsin who had gathered for their regional tournament. The Whitewater Unified School District (WUSD) was well represented with five teams participating – the Lakeview BrickLayers, Lincoln BrickLayers, Washington BrickLayers, and two teams from the middle school: WMS Iron Dragons – Silver and WMS Iron Dragons – Red.
Earlier this fall, teams learned the details of this year’s season theme – Masterpiece! All of the FIRST Robotics games this year are celebrating STEAM, adding Art to the traditional STEM acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. FLL teams were asked to prepare an Innovation Project where they explored the use of art and technology to solve a problem related to one of their hobbies. They were also presented with a playing field that celebrated all aspects of art, music, and theater. The playing field had 15 missions for the students to complete, and teams could choose which missions they wanted to try and accomplish in each 2-minute 30-second robot run with their Lego Spike Prime robot, designing attachments for the robot that would be appropriate for the variety of missions.
Sara Brautigam at Lakeview, Lisa Kaminski at Lincoln, and Chris Nate, Val Troxel, and Michelle Marshall at Washington formed their teams of 4th and 5th graders soon after the school year started. Teams have been meeting up to two nights after school each week ever since in order to prepare for the Mukwonago event. The Washington team was also able to participate in a scrimmage in Muskego in early October to get the feel for what a competition would be like. With so many students interested in joining FLL, Lincoln also created two additional teams that were able to compete in-house at an event at Lincoln Elementary on November 16. Kerry Ramsden at the middle school was able to register two teams officially with FIRST, and both were able to travel to Mukwonago.
When the teams arrived in Mukwonago, they were able to set up a display of their materials in the pit, the area where teams can go to work between judging sessions and robot runs. This pit also provides an opportunity for teams to check out each other’s work.
During an event, each team spends a 30-minute period with a panel of three judges. This time is divided into two 5-minute presentations (one for the project and one for the robot design) with question and answer periods with the judges in between. Teams are also allotted time to discuss the core values of FIRST (discovery, innovation, impact, fun, inclusion, and teamwork) with the judges. The judges love to hear about how everyone on the team worked together to solve problems throughout the season!
In addition to the judging session, teams were each scheduled for four robot runs in the gym. The first of these was a practice match to allow the students to work with the referees to make sure they understood what they could and couldn’t do during a match. Scores for each of their three official robot runs were compiled and only their best score counted in the final rankings. The Washington Bricklayers earned the top robot score of any Whitewater team, increasing their score from 200 in their first run to 220 in their second run, and finally to 250 in their last run. Everyone was incredibly proud of how the middle school red team responded after dropping their robot on the way to their first match and needing to rewrite all of their code on the fly between matches. In addition to recording their robot scores, referees also rated each team on their gracious professionalism (think sportsmanship) during matches, which factored into each team’s core values rankings.
A team’s final ranking was calculated by weighting scores from each of four areas: 25% from the project rubric, 25% from the robot explanation rubric, 25% from the best robot run, and 25% from the core values rubric/gracious professionalism score. While the judges deliberated the final awards and decided which teams would advance to sectionals, students and mentors participated in a team parade in the gym, followed by a dance party! Washington Elementary was nominated by the judges for both the Rising All-Star Award and the Break-through Award, indicating that the judges expect great things from them in the future. None of the Whitewater teams will advance to the next level this year, but the students learned an incredible amount about teamwork, organization, documentation, and coding and are already talking about next year.
If you have questions about robotics programs in the Whitewater Unified School District, please reach out to one of the following:
Lakeview Elementary – Sara Brautigam
Lincoln Elementary – Lisa Kaminski
Washington Elementary – Chris Nate or Val Troxel
Whitewater Middle School – Kerry Ramsden
Whitewater High School – Laura Masbruch
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