NewsUpper SchoolAcademicsTechnology
Lego robots compete at Darlington
Dec 15, 2009 4:00 PM
By Tannika King - Faculty
Written by Kevin Myrick, Rome News-Tribune staff writer, published 12/13/09
Robots invaded the campus of Darlington on Saturday, roaming the halls of the middle school campus. These small Lego-based bots weren’t at the school for evil intentions but instead had an educational use.
The school hosted 19 teams from around the region in a Lego robotics tournament. Owen Kinney was the coach of the Dar Bots robotics team and organizer for Saturday’s First Lego League Regional Qualifier Tournament. He said a majority of the teams Saturday came from Whitfield County, but students in grades fourth through eighth from across Northwest Georgia were competing.
“A lot of kids play sports against one another, and that’s fine,” Kinney said. “But this is a chance for kids to compete in academic competition and later utilize those skills as an engineer or scientist.”
The Pibots of Atlanta finished first, while the Technotes of Atlanta came in second. Living Legos from Dalton finished third.
Darlington’s team placed on the alternate list to go on to super regionals.
The Dar Bots team was still working to make things work perfectly Saturday morning, and among those on the team trying to help get the Lego robotics to run the course correctly was fifth-grader Clayton Bennett.
Click here to visit the First Lego League Web site.
Clayton said that even with months of practice, it can get frustrating when things don’t work correctly, and said there were always two likely culprits.
“Probably the main thing that can go wrong is you put the robot down in the right place and it doesn’t do what you want it to do on the course,” he said. “Or it’s a programming issue.”
He said it usually takes about three days to build the robots, built from the Lego Mindstorm NXT robots. These robots then are programmed to complete a set of specific tasks on a course, doing everything from climbing Lego brick bridges to later knocking down that same bridge.
Robots invaded the campus of Darlington on Saturday, roaming the halls of the middle school campus. These small Lego-based bots weren’t at the school for evil intentions but instead had an educational use.
The school hosted 19 teams from around the region in a Lego robotics tournament. Owen Kinney was the coach of the Dar Bots robotics team and organizer for Saturday’s First Lego League Regional Qualifier Tournament. He said a majority of the teams Saturday came from Whitfield County, but students in grades fourth through eighth from across Northwest Georgia were competing.
“A lot of kids play sports against one another, and that’s fine,” Kinney said. “But this is a chance for kids to compete in academic competition and later utilize those skills as an engineer or scientist.”
The Pibots of Atlanta finished first, while the Technotes of Atlanta came in second. Living Legos from Dalton finished third.
Darlington’s team placed on the alternate list to go on to super regionals.
The Dar Bots team was still working to make things work perfectly Saturday morning, and among those on the team trying to help get the Lego robotics to run the course correctly was fifth-grader Clayton Bennett.
Click here to visit the First Lego League Web site.
Clayton said that even with months of practice, it can get frustrating when things don’t work correctly, and said there were always two likely culprits.
“Probably the main thing that can go wrong is you put the robot down in the right place and it doesn’t do what you want it to do on the course,” he said. “Or it’s a programming issue.”
He said it usually takes about three days to build the robots, built from the Lego Mindstorm NXT robots. These robots then are programmed to complete a set of specific tasks on a course, doing everything from climbing Lego brick bridges to later knocking down that same bridge.
