Heritage, Madison elementary’s robots among state’s best

Madison Elementary School’s team, Environmental Einsteins, ranked in first place for robot programming. CONTRIBUTED

MADISON – Madison youngsters are mastering the concept of coding, as shown by first-place wins at Alabama FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Championship.

The FIRST acronym represents ‘For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

Heritage Elementary School placed first in the research category at the robotics championship. Heritage’s team, “Building On Up,” won first place for overall project. Rachel Gibbs sponsors the robotics team.

Madison Elementary School’s team, Environmental Einsteins, ranked in first place for robot programming.

Robotics team members at Madison elementary are fifth-graders Katherine Bodden and Camden Miller and sixth-graders Colby Bong, Kayla England, Aidan Franks, Aaron Kennedy, Jaya Vadapalli, Malachi Widener and Jaden Yu.

Mia Reed, Madison elementary’s enrichment special, sponsors the robotics team. Angela Bong served as parent coach. “Colby, Aidan, Aaron, Jaya and Jaden were returning members from one of our teams from last year,” Reed said.

Team members chose their name, Environmental Einsteins, to follow the 2015 theme, “Trash Trek.” “They wanted to choose something to do with the environment, and, of course, they wanted to be smart with how they take care of trash,” Reed said.

To win the programming award, the students provided documentation of their code and verbally shared their programming concepts. This effort proved to judges that “they had a good knowledge of the code used in programming the robot to do the desired missions,” she said.

“They went beyond the basic programming skills and learned to use some of the more complex features,” Reed said.

Judges used three criteria to evaluate robot programming:

* Programming quality — Appropriate for intended purpose and will achieve consistent results, assuming no mechanical faults.

* Programming efficiency — Modular, streamlined and understandable.

* Automation/navigation – Ability of robot to move or act as intended by using mechanical and/or sensor feedback. Robot uses minimal reliance on driver intervention and/or program timing.

FIRST, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, helps youth discover and develop a passion for science, engineering, technology and math. For more information, visit firstinalabama.org.