Dist. 57 robotics team set for Atlanta

Mount Prospect School District 57 board members bid the Lincoln Middle School robotics team good luck Thursday night as the group prepares for an international competition in Atlanta.

The nine students, all seventh-graders, performed a short skit for the board at Lincoln Middle School, shortly after the meeting began, demonstrating part of what they must do in April at the competition.

The road to the international competition began after the school's robotics club won the regional and then the state competition earlier this year.

"I thought we'd place in the top five (at the state competition), but when they said we'd won, I almost fainted," said 12-year-old club member Mike Lipinski of Mount Prospect.

Now the team will head to Georgia, where more than 80 teams from almost 40 countries will compete, pitting the most technologically savvy kids against each other. The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League international competition is for kids ages 9 to 14 in the U.S. and Canada and 9 to 16 elsewhere.

The competition requires kids to demonstrate the ability to build working robots using LEGOs, which must perform various tasks.

"Some of the kids think the club is about playing with LEGOs, but it's a lot more complicated than that," said club coach Eric Arndt, whose daughter, Taylor, 12, is on the team.

But the competition isn't all about robots. The team must also show its ability to research a real-life problem and then find a solution, based upon the competition's theme.

This year, the theme was energy management and conservation and the team picked Mount Prospect's Busse Car Wash. The group performed an energy audit and worked together to find a solution to make the business more energy efficient, said head coach Cathy Jones-Endres, whose daughter, Jessica, is part of the team.

The skit the group performed Thursday, which it also must perform in Atlanta, about how it solved the car wash's problems.

The competition is April 17-19.

Team members are: Taylor Arndt, Joey DeRicco, Jessica Endres, Mikela Fetter, Seth Groharing, Mike Lipinski, Alec Mataloni, Emma Swanson and Hannah Trezise.