Ninja Cheese was one of 18 teams of children ages nine to 14 from New Hampshire and Vermont who competed in the fourth annual Lego League Robotics Tournament hosted by the Dartmouth Lego League and organized by Thayer School of Engineering students on Saturday.
This year's challenge, "Food Factor," focused on food contamination and safety. Each team had eight weeks to research the problem of food contamination, prepare a formal presentation detailing a workable solution and develop a working robot capable of undertaking theme-related missions, Christian Ortiz '11, a Thayer graduate student and co-director of the event, said. The competitions, which spanned from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., were held in various rooms in Thayer.
Minutes into a late round of the competition, the crowd enthusiastically counted down the end of the robot mission.
"Calm down, just a little bit. Feel free to count down, but just do it with lower voices," Arianna Heiderer '11 Th'12, the event's announcer who was dressed in a homemade Lego suit, said from the podium. "And once again, the points don't matter this is just for fun."
During each round, teams raced their robots to complete tasks including harvesting corn, removing pests and reversing pollution. Both competitors and spectators treated the tournament as if it were a true sporting event, according to Liz Sunde, a spectator and mother of a Ninja Cheese team member.
"It's fun to see kids get wild here like they would for football games," Sunde said. "In this country, we're so used to seeing kids play sports, and that's what we think of as a team-building activity. But this turns it all on its head because it's a real team-building activity that's a mind-sport."
Team Robo Dogs invented the "Citrus Sizzle" bananas and apples made of modeling compound that use citrus scents to keep fruit flies away from produce. The Franconia Lego Lovers created the "Egg-O-Matic," a device that cleans eggs and itself simultaneously.
The seven highest scoring teams will advance to the next round of competition in Manchester on Dec. 3, according to co-director Kelly Mallery '11 Th'13.
Dynamic Design, a team from Monkton Central School in Monkton, Vt., finished first in Saturday's competition. The team shocked spectators because it was Dynamic Design's first time competing in the event, according to Ortiz.
One of Dynamic Design's team members and one of its coaches left before the awards ceremony because they assumed the team would not win, team member Carley Sherwin, 11, said.
"Most of us hadn't even touched a program before," Dynamic Design's Robyn Arena, 11, said.
The competition provided unique, out-of-the-classroom lessons regarding the fundamentals of programming and food safety, according to several participants interviewed by The Dartmouth.
"I want to be an engineer now," Dynamic Design's Aidan May, 11, said. After visiting campus, May said he hopes to attend Dartmouth when he is older.
Even teams that did not advance to the state competition benefitted from the event, according to Sam Westleman, an adult mentor for T.W.A.C.A., which stands for Team With A Cool Acronym.
"They get so many levels team work, communication, time management, programming, mechanical design," Westleman said. "It's just an unbelievable program."
Judges for the three competition areas teamwork, robotics and research included Dartmouth professors and PhD candidates. Technical judge Kevin Baron, who works at Thayer's machine shop, said the competition was "exciting" to watch.
"It's so heartwarming to see these kids take on these projects," Baron said, adding that he is impressed by the amount of time and energy participants devoted to the challenge.
Dartmouth has hosted the event for four years, but this competition was the first time in which students from the College did not mentor teams due to scheduling conflicts, according to Ortiz. The change, however, did not detract from the event's success, according to Mallery.
"You can actually see the kids absorb knowledge in front of your eyes," Mallery said. "It's so fun to see all that happen and know that you have even the smallest influence in it."
The Dartmouth Lego League is a branch of the international organization FIRST, "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology," which aims to encourage children to pursue math and science, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Ortiz who has been involved with FIRST for 12 years including three as a competitor in middle school, four in the high school league, four as a mentor at the College and one as a staff member said the competition is an amazing educational opportunity for everyone involved.
"If at the end of the day one student is inspired to want to explore the area more, I'm happy," he said. "Or if one is inspired to go to Dartmouth, I'm even happier as an alum this event always puts a smile on my face, and this year it's even bigger."
