Charles City students take second in state LEGO League contest

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Cosmic Snowballs returned home with two trophies after competing in the FIRST LEGO League’s state contest over the weekend.

“This is far beyond what I could have hoped for,” said TAG instructor Patrick Nyberg, who co-coaches the middle school team alongside librarian Kelsey VanderWerf.

Starting the Lego robot program in October, the sixth and seventh grade students have seen wild success in their first year of competition. In December, the team received the highest score in their regional qualifier in Waterloo, securing a spot in the state contest held in Ames on Jan. 27 and 28.

In the FIRST LEGO League contest, teams are tasked with engineering, building and programming a robot capable of performing a series of pre-defined tasks set up around a mission course.

From flipping a lever to spinning a wheel to pushing a switch, it is up to the students to figure out how to build a Lego robot capable of performing as many tasks as possible both accurately and quickly. Points are determined by how many tasks are competed in the best of three runs around the course.

The state contest was held over the weekend at Iowa State University in Ames, splitting 100 teams between Saturday and Sunday events.

After a strong showing during the regional qualifier, the Cosmic Snowballs were excited to test their skills in a higher level of competition. Over the last month and a half they’ve worked to refine their robot.

Setting up early Saturday morning, the team was faced with a challenging start as their robot struggled to perform during practice time.

“At our practice slot, nothing went right,” said Nyberg.

With just 15 minutes before their first judged run, the kids rallied and made the last minute adjustments needed to succeed.

The Cosmic Snowballs’ robot scored 380 points during its first run and cleared 300 points on the next two, making them the only team of the day to clear 300 points on all three runs.

Not only was their initial 380 point run a 100-point improvement over their regional qualifier performance, but it also ended up being the top score of the day, making the Cosmic Snowballs the first place winners in robotic performance for the Saturday contest.

“I’m not wholly surprised by this result,” said Nyberg. “They are exceptional as individuals and exceptional as a group.”

While the robot game is the biggest spectacle of the contest, teams must also give a presentation about their robot to the judges, present an “innovation challenge” with a technology problem to solve, and represent the league’s core values through teamwork and sportsmanship.

“It’s much more than just the robot game,” said Nyberg.

At the end of the day, when all of the judging was over, the Cosmic Snowballs placed second overall out of the 50 teams to compete on Saturday.

The Cosmic Snowballs weren’t the only Charles City based teams to compete in Ames over the weekend either. Two teams from Immaculate Conception, the Wildcat Big Brains and the IC Smarties, also qualified for the state contest, competing in the Sunday selection.

“The day was filled with lots of individual team victories that showcased how the kids had developed their projects and performances from the regional competitions just last month,” said IC TAG instructor Jeanne Hansen. “There were lots of celebrations among our team members along with lots of encouragement given to other teams throughout the day.”

The Wildcat Big Brains and the IC Smarties put in a valiant effort, placing 20th and 26th respectively in the robot game and giving them a goal to surpass for next year.

“The most exciting thing for me to see as a coach and teacher was the students’ motivation and enthusiasm to keep growing as a team and building their skills for next season,” said Hanson. “They are authentically discovering, firsthand, that learning is a fun, ongoing and rewarding process. The FIRST LEGO League robotics program is extremely engaging and addresses learning needs and styles across a vast spectrum. I’m so happy IC has the opportunity to take part.”

Along with competing in the LEGO League, the kids also enjoyed a tour of the ISU campus, showcasing a STEM fair that demonstrated different areas of study they could pursue in higher education.

“The kids were able to see how the skills they were mastering in LEGO League could be further applied with more complexity in our world,” said Hanson.

“Not only was the event well-organized thanks to the FIRST staff and volunteers, but it was so much fun for everyone,” said VanderWerf. “The inclusive and fun energy surrounding this event was one of the main contributors to our second place finish!”

While the season may be over for the IC teams, the Cosmic Snowballs may have more building ahead of them this year. As second place winners at the state level, they will be next in line to compete in the FIRST Championship in Houston this April in the event that the winning team is unable to compete.

Their performance also qualifies the team to participate in other national invitational contests coming up.

“It’s cool that we’re not quite done,” said Nyberg.

In the meantime, the kids will continue to refine their robot work.

Nyberg said he is looking forward to seeing how much farther his students can go and is thankful for all the support. From families cheering them on to an administration that has given him the go-ahead to pursue this program, Nyberg credits the enthusiastic support with some of the team’s success.

“I feel a ton of support from the school community in general,” said Nyberg. “I can’t overstate how proud I am of the kids.”