Local team earns firsts in robotics event

Mon, Nov 23, 2009    to del.icio.us

GRANDVILLE — The Men in Black, a FIRST LEGO League team comprised of eight kids ages 9 to 13 from Spring Lake and Grand Haven earned first place in Robot Performance, first place in Robot Design, and second place overall out of 45 teams at Saturday's regional qualifying tournament in Grandville. They will be advancing to the state tournament in Flint on December 12.

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"I couldn't be more proud of the kids," coach David Wolters said. "(They) have been working very hard since the end of August and it's good to see their dedication pay off."

Another team from Grand Haven, team Robotica, will also be headed to the state tournament after placing 11th at the competition in Grandville, Wolters said. The team also won the "Rising Star" award for the team that shows the most promise.

This year's competition theme is "Smart Move" and teams worldwide had roughly eight weeks to prepare for tournaments. Teams are judged in four categories: Teamwork, Technical Design and Programming, Robot Performance on the competition table, and presentation of their findings of a research project. Each category counts equally toward the final overall score, with the top 11 teams advancing to the state tournament.

For research projects, teams were given the challenge to learn about a problem in their community that is transportation-related and then come up with an innovative solution to that problem.

The Men in Black decided that they wanted to help Grand Haven and Spring Lake Schools find a solution to rapidly rising diesel prices. Initially, the team suggested purchasing hybrid buses that are recharged by generators on the exercise equipment at the Spring Lake Community Fitness and Aquatic Center.

After meeting with Rod Jonas and Dale Ortquist with the Grand Haven Public Schools transportation department, the team did some further research and learned that a more practical solution would be to collect used fryer oil from local restaurants and use that as fuel for the bus fleet.

The kids calculated that in Spring Lake alone there is enough used fryer oil to power several buses. The kids call their solution Veggie Air Friendly Bus, or V.A.F.B.

On the Net:

www.LegoLakers.com