Lego Studs

This year Chase was chosen again as one of a handful of students at our school to be on the Lego Robotics team.  They have been practicing for weeks to compete at the Northern Nevada qualifying tournament which took place today.  The theme this year was Animal allies and each team had to research an animal to bring awareness too, or to come up with an idea to present that would solve a problem an animal encounters.  Chase's team came up with an awesome idea to help prevent desert tortoises from being run over by cars.  His team name was the six Lego studs.

This year they had made costumes to go along with their competition idea.

Complete with shells, and masks (like ninja turtles).

 We also had another team from our school competing, the fluffy narwhals. 

In the morning they had their presentations and Q&A with the judges.  Parents were not in attendance, and teacher's were only allowed to observe.  Later in the day the robot part of the competition began.  Chase was chosen as a coder again this year.  Only the coders are allowed to do the calculations and even touch the robot at competition.

Their team cheered them on from the sidelines, but were not allowed at the competition table.

I think Chase got a little nervous when it was their turn, and watching him holding his breath was pretty funny.

It was a quick 2.5 minutes but both boys were happy with their robots performance.

There was quite a bit of waiting in between matches and these 3 boys seemed to stick together for it all. 

At the end of the match the coders were given their scores by the judge's (not even teacher's are allowed to see).

At the end of the competition a dance off broke out on the floor and our school cleared the floor with their moves.

They held the awards ceremony, and we were so happy that both of our teams qualified for the next round in January.

Late nights, early mornings, and giving up Saturday's for weeks really paid off for our teams and coach's.