Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Cheyenne County's 4-H Robotics team We Bot da Fun competed on Saturday at the Nebraska State First Lego League Robotics Tournament at the Strategic Air & Space Museum in Ashland. They brought home a trophy for teamwork.
Pictured from left are team members: Kaitlyn Darnell, Landon Keen, Manu Eledath, Ben Colerick, Arya Eledath, Paige Pritchard, Rylie Wright, Coach Nick Scripp, Jada Pritchard and Tia Pritchard.
The Sidney First Lego League (FLL) Team went to the 2016 Nebraska Robotics Expo in Ashland, Neb. on Saturday and walked away with a trophy for teamwork.
According to Cynthia Gill, Extension Educator with 4H Youth Development, the kids get so much more from the program.
"The kids are so engaged with the program, they work together to learn but also it's really the kids that drive the program" says Gill.
First Lego League work in teams coached by volunteers to research real-world problems such as food safety, recycling, energy, etc., and are challenged to develop a solution.
They also design, build and program robots using Lego technology, and compete on a table-top playing field.
According to the First Lego League website, they learn to apply science, technology, engineering, and math concepts (STEM), plus a big dose of imagination, to solve a problem.
Along their discovery journey, they develop critical thinking and
team-building skills, basic STEM applications, and even presentation skills, as they must present their solutions with a dash of creativity to judges.
There were two teams from Sidney that competed in the Regional Competition that was held in Sidney in January. One team got first place and one got fourth place which means they both qualified for the State Tournament.
According to Rose Bowcot a volunteer that helped to coach the team, there are four parts the team is judged on, Robot Design: how they built the robot and the way it was built, Robot Challenge: how the robot actually performs in different challenges and Core Values: whether they learned and applied the essential core values. The final category being judged is Project, this years project theme was Trash Trek, the project the team put together was focused on old dry erase markers. According to Gill, the team did a ton of research, turning the markers into the game.
The FLL is funded by 4H, UNL Extension office and various fundraisers. Volunteer coaches Rose Bowcut and Aron Seader currently run the group at the Light Presbyterian Church, the space donated for the group to practice. The group is an off season group that starts in September.
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