By Cindy Zomar, Contributing Writer
Marlborough – Teams of fourth- to eighth-grade students, with robots and project boards in hand, converged on the Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School cafeteria Dec. 2. Hosted by the school’s robotics team, the AZTECHS 157, 36 groups of hopeful students had worked for months on research, problem-solving, designing and programming a LEGO robot to perform specific tasks in this year’s challenge, Hydro Dynamics.
By the end of the day, the Robo Rampage team from Sharon had accumulated the most all-around points to be named champions. Robo Rampage, along with 10 other teams will move on to the next level of competition.
The event was not all about playing with LEGOS, however.
“This is like a science fair topped off with a LEGO competition,” explained Randy Lennox, one of the AZTECHS mentors. Students had to research and identify a problem associated with the human water cycle, and then brainstorm a solution to share with others.
“The Assabet hallways were filled with students practicing their presentation, tweaking their project board, or rehearsing their skits. … It was a crazy day, with constant action, music, cheering, and high fives,” added Marcus Fletcher, project manager of the AZTECHS.
The Dizzy Dolphins team from Lexington included students from Shrewsbury, Burlington, Hanscom and Franklin, ranging in age from 11 to 14. Teammate Diya Satanur, from Shrewsbury, noted that having everyone pulling together as a team was exciting and rewarding.
“The research was the biggest challenge, though,” Satanur added. “I contacted water departments from all of our towns to talk about biological filtration, but ended up going to the Shrewsbury Water Department and meeting with them there. They … advised me that Worcester will be getting a water plant in 2018 that will be the most advanced in New England and second overall in the country! That’s really cool to know,” she said.
Volunteer judges came from the Assabet staff as well as many local firms, including Boston Scientific, Raytheon, and Curtis Industries, among others.
“I was actually on a team in Delaware when I was in seventh grade, so when I saw the announcement at work about this event, I decided to volunteer,” said Andrew Pic, an engineer from Boston Scientific. “It is exciting to see how these kids move from talking about the concept to then thinking through some creative solutions. I was really impressed to hear that one team went back to their town to share some ideas they came up with to solve real problems. That’s amazing at that age!
To view a video explaining this year’s challenge, visit http://tinyurl.com/yafz4b2 and more information about the event can be found at www.firstinspires.org.
