Smart Fun Engineers place first overall in the state of Maine at First Lego Robotics Remote Event

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The Smart Fun Engineers.

FARMINGTON – This year FIRST LEGO League FLL teams were still able to hold a competition through a remote event held on April 10. FLL hosts a three-part competition, which includes an innovation project, LEGO robot game, and core values.

According to FIRST’s website FIRST LEGO League teams are introduced to a scientific and real-world challenge in August of each year. This year’s theme was RePlay – finding a solution to get people motivated to be more active in a fun, innovative way. Smart Fun Engineers solution to work toward solving this world-wide problem was to create an exergaming system (a portable mat) that connects to any game you can play on a tablet. This mat encourages continuous movement while gaming through controlling characters in the game with the mat.The LEGO robot missions on the table corresponded with the challenge. Smart Fun students had to come up with a robot design, build it, and program it to be able to complete missions for points.

Amaya Thomas, a four-year veteran, explains that the team was able to get 315 points on the table with the robot using four motors along with a linear actuator, a gyro sensor to help with precision, a wedge “tire flipper,” and a “cube dumper” attachment. The nine students on the team made up of two veterans and seven rookies had to present team core values to a panel of judges as well. Smart Fun Engineers were able to place first overall in the state of Maine.

“It was a cool experience to be able to work with a team of rookies because it was fun to help teach and guide them along the way. I am glad our team got to do it even with Covid,” Thomas said.

Team members were Thomas, Kari Savage two-year veteran, Autumn Decker, Brett Allen, Quinn Ryan, John Crocker, Adam Crocker, Rory Whitmore, and Isaiah Esty. The team was coached and mentored by Monica Allen and Sheena Thomas and supported by many local sponsors.

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