Going to the world finals
A team of home-schooled students from Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Long Grove and Lake Zurich will take the floor of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta today, for the FIRST LEGO League's World Festival.
They are joining neighboring Cobalt Blue, a team of seventh- and eighth-graders from Lincoln Middle School in Mount Prospect who won the state competition in January.
The world robotics competition challenges teams on how fast their robot can complete a series of 14 missions -- all related to energy conservation -- in less than three minutes.
Four years ago, the SWAT team from Arlington Heights -- Superior Working And Technology -- set their sights on earning a berth to the world competition, and this year they arrived, but in a surprising manner: by sharing.
In all, 84 teams from across the country and Canada qualified for the competition. Nearly all of them, like Cobalt Blue, earned their way there by progressing through regionals to win their state tournament.
However, this year the judges reserved the right to nominate 12 ambassador teams who represent the league's core values. SWAT was nominated in January, after they competed at the state tournament in Arlington Heights.
"They were chosen because they demonstrated the kind of 'gracious professionalism' and outreach to the FIRST LEGO League and broader community that FIRST wants to celebrate," says Cynthia Schmitz, state tournament director.
Specifically, SWAT members had helped five rookie teams from Chicago with building and programming their robots in preparation for their first competition. One of the five advanced to the state tournament.
Upon hearing last month that they had received a berth to the world competition, SWAT team members cheered at the chance to keep practicing each week and refining their robot.
"We're trying to make our robot faster," says David Andrew, 10, of Arlington Heights. "We don't want to have as many pauses in the program."
At state, they consistently scored 300 out of a possible 400 points. Since then, they have tweaked their robot enough to earn 375, but a perfect score remains elusive.
"We've added more sensors and tried to lighten some of the equipment," adds Jonathan Greer, 13, of Arlington Heights.
At last week's practice, they worked on getting the robot to complete the last of the missions: attaching a solar panel to a house, located on the competition table.
"This is the type of programming (NASA) used on the Mars mission," says Ben Andrew, 13, of Arlington Heights. "This is the real stuff."
Other team members include: James Davis, Kyle George and David Greer, all of Arlington Heights; Jason and Tyler Long of Lake Zurich; Ben Shudak of Buffalo Grove; and Daniel Wright of Long Grove.
Their coaches include John Greer of Arlington Heights, Larry Shudak of Buffalo Grove, and teen mentor Teegan Fiedler of Arlington Heights.