After having won the Champions Award at one of the four regional qualifier events last month, Needham FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team The Mighty Moooons competed in the Massachusetts State Championship, RoboNautica, held on Saturday, May 15, which included the top 30 teams from the four qualifier events.
FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Challenge is a research and robotics tournament for 9-14 year-old students. It combines the fun of technology and science with the exciting atmosphere of a sports event. The FLL challenge has three parts: The Robot Game, in which teams program an autonomous LEGO robot to solve missions and score points on a themed playing field within 2.5 minutes; The Project, in which teams research the challenge topic, identify a specific problem and come up with an innovative solution that they present to the judges; and FLL Core Values, which include the spirit of teamwork, friendly competition and sharing.
For the state finals, the Mighty Moooons improved their robot game performance from 380 points at the qualifiers to a personal best of 455 points, which earned them an honorable sixth place in the Robot Game challenge. On the Innovation Project challenge, the team did even better by winning the second place award. For their project, the team researched ways to motivate people to be physically more active. After brainstorming many ideas and weighing the pros and cons of each, the team decided to build a mobile and web-based app to track physical activity, and used gamification to motivate people to exercise more. They were able to make an impact on the local community by partnering with two PE teachers at Mitchell Elementary School, Mr. Martin and Mr. Darling, and pilot the app within a few grades.
The Mighty Moooons team members are Aarav Agrawal (High Rock grade 6), Brandon Ah Kee (High Rock grade 6), Jayden Ah Kee (Mitchell grade 4) and Kanav Agrawal (Mitchell grade 3). The team’s achievement was also recognized by Superintendent of Needham Public Schools Dr. Dan Gutekanst at the School Committee session held on May 18.
For more information about FLL, visit www.firstinspires.org.
