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Published on 12/08/1999 All articles from this issue

Los Altos' LEGO robotics team awarded at inaugural competition

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By Linda Taaffe

Town Crier Staff Writer

The Los Altos TigerBots were among the eight robotics teams in Santa Clara County to compete Dec. 1 in the inaugural First LEGO League competition for students ages 9-14 at Oak School. The TigerBots took home "Best Mechanical Design" for their homemade robot.

Sponsored by FIRST and LEGO Mindstorms, the First LEGO robotics league is an extension of the high school league. Organizers say they hope to excite junior high school students about math, science and technology through the program, which requires students to invent a robot capable of performing tasks on a sports-like playing field.

This year's challenge required that each team design, construct, program and test its own robot, using pieces from the LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Invention System. The robots had to be capable of manipulating objects and had to be self-moving.

The eight-member Los Altos team, which is entirely fourth and fifth graders from Oak School, built a robot with a removable arm-like extension and moveable neck that could be adjusted for improved performance in specific portions of the competition. The team spent eight weeks building the robot, team members said.

Siena Kramer, the only girl on the team, said she joined the TigerBots because "it seemed interesting and it's something I've never done before."

She said building the robot was more "challenging" than she thought.

"I'm not used to building things. I think it's easier to take things apart," she said.

Each team's robot could earn points by completing five missions, which included lifting and moving balls into specific bins on the playing field.

Programs downloaded from a computer into the robots controlled each machine's movements once on the playing field.

The robots could read the black lines that ran across the white playing field, and would respond to each line according to how they were programmed.

A robot might be programmed to turn at the second black line that it read, for example.

TigerBots leader Michael Schuh, who helped coordinate the event, said the competition was an opportunity for team members to show their creations.

Schuh said interest in the program has been snowballing over the past few years.

He said participation in the league jumped from 50 to 1,000 teams over the past year.