St. James CrusaderBots

St. James CrusaderBots had the opportunity to travel to Kokomo for their FIRST Lego League Challenge qualifying event. The event was an all day affair with opening ceremonies beginning at 8:00 am followed by test runs, innovation project judging, the robot game challenge, and ending ceremonies concluding the event at 4:00pm.

This is the first year St. James has had a team go to competition. The team of 4th-8th graders put together a presentation about a hobby they loved and wanted to share with others using technology. Our CrusaderBots chose reading as their hobby and creatively designed and built a story museum to bring books to life. They presented their innovation idea in front of a panel of judges and answered questions about their idea and design.

The team was then judged on how well they worked together during the competition and on their robot design and missions. The team scored very well in the robotics challenge for a rookie team that has had no previous experience. Our team completed 8 missions in the 2.5 minute time limit. They programmed their robot using code, and built the design to best accomplish their missions.

The team left feeling accomplished as they did very well for their first time competing. The event they attended had tough competition with the past state champions in attendance. The CrusaderBots scored 180 on their best robot mission with 8 tasks completed. They do not know their final placement as many factors go into their overall score. They left the event filled with new engineering ideas, new knowledge and excitement to improve their robot design for next season. Only 4 teams move on to the regional competition and they will not have that information until next week.

We are proud of their effort, determination, work ethic, and teamwork.