Students take on trash with robotics at Batavia regional

BATAVIA – One of the most difficult tasks that the Lego Eagles team robot had on Saturday was getting down to a composter on the other side of a table.

“It was so far away and it’s a small area you have to hit,” Rotolo eighth grader Rebecca Marston said. “We were successful three out of the four rounds.”

The Lego Eagles were one of 30 teams who competed Saturday in the Batavia FIRST Lego League Regional held at Rotolo Middle School in Batavia. FIRST is an acronym meaning “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”

The league each year announces a challenge theme, and this year was Trash Trek, which explored what should be done with all the trash created on the planet.

Students competed in four areas – project presentation, technical design and programming of a robot, robot performance and teamwork, or core values.

“[League officials] try to pick topics relative to kids, something they can get into,” said Ron Karabowicz, coordinator of the Batavia regional and Fox Valley Robotics president.

Students embraced the trash topic and used their creativity to stand out in the presentation section of the competition. Some groups had costumes and another group performed a song with their own lyrics based on singer The Weeknd’s “I Can’t Feel My Face.”

Brandon Cosby’s team – the Illinois Math and Science Academy Army of Electrons – explored ways to address the use of mercury, which is toxic to humans.

“I thought it would be a cool thing to do – I like it,” Cosby said of his first year on a robotics team.

Lego Eagles member Ethan Fisk also thought robotics would be a fun activity. This is his second year on the Eagles team, which is made up of Rotolo students.

Team Lego Eagles created a series of signs and posters for its presentation urging people to “Think Twice” and remember to recycle.

The signs were posted in the Rotolo school cafeteria, and they increased the amount of recycling by 20 percent and reduced garbage by 19 percent, said team member and Rotolo seventh-grader Kevin Silbernagel.

If applied to the real world, it could amount to 27 million tons more being recycled than the current amount, seventh-grader Rhys Marston, Rebecca’s brother, said.

The Lego Eagles were one of eight teams on Saturday who qualified to compete in a state competition of their choosing – either Jan. 16 at Elgin Community College in Elgin or on Jan. 23 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Another team that advanced were the Thunder Bots, which also has Rotolo students as its members.

One of the team’s coaches, Kevin Schulhof, has been involved Fox Valley Robotics since 2011.

“For kids that want to learn how to be involved in science and engineering, having Fox Valley Robotics is a really good opportunity,” Schulhof said.

The other six teams to advance to the state level were Royal Tech, Trash Twistax, Quadbrick, Techno Storms, Darien and Circuit Breakers.

On the web

For information about Fox Valley Robotics, visit www.foxvalleyrobotics.com.