By Lopez School’s LEGO Robotics team
Imagine Lopez Island hit by a severe windstorm. Power is out, and so is the water pump. How long will you survive? How can you prepare for such a situation?
These are research questions the Lego Robotics team members of Lopez Elementary/Middle School sought to find answers to. After some research and talking to local experts, the team created a website and made educational movies to share what they learned about emergency preparedness.
Calling themselves “Stormcrafters,” the team members presented their project at the regional First LEGO League tournament on January 19, 2014.
In addition to research projects about natural disasters – the theme of the FLL tournament this year—a main area of competition is a robot game: building and programming robots to complete assigned missions.
The Lopez “Stormcrafters” came in fifth out of 50 teams on the robot game. They also scored highly in the other areas: core values (teamwork and gracious professionalism), robot design, and research project. The team was chosen to compete in the semi-final tournament on February 9th in Mill Creek, and so was the team from Waldron Island. Another team from the San Juans, the Shaw Island team, received an award for project research.
Lopez’s FLL Robotics is coached by parent Ingrid Vliet and comprises 3rd-8th grade students: Kai Di Bona, Jaden Eaton, Ty Greacen, Canyon Hernandez-Doherty, Indigo Luckhurst, Brandon Miller, Aaron Vliet, and Naomi Vliet.
To learn about their project and emergency preparedness, visit their website, stormcrafters.weebly.com. The site features fun brick-film animation movies about how to, and not to, prepare for a storm, as well as an educational “adventure map” for fans of a popular computer game called “Minecraft.”
