The lower school Lego Robotics team participated in the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) State Championship on Dec. 1 at the Blaisdell Arena, winning a second place trophy for the core values contest.

This year’s annual competition included 52 teams from across the state. Teams qualify to move on to championships through selection, based on robot performance, robot design, presentation and core values.

The lower school robotics team has prepared for months, competing in a district tournament and assembling robots to submit in the competition.

“Once the challenge is released nationally in September, the team meets twice every week to design, build and program a LEGO NXT Robot,” said senior and robotics coach, Alexis Fraga. “The students split up into three teams and each built their own robot design, but only one is selected for further improvement.”

In addition to completing the robot challenge, teams were paired with a senior partner to develop a solution to problems that senior citizens face today.

“The problem that our team took into consideration was the issue of loneliness because the seniors would often comment that they were lonely,” said science and robotics teacher, James Bell. “The girls came up with a device much like Skype that allowed seniors to contact one another easily. They had the idea of making it a one-purpose, dedicated tool that is convenient for the elderly and could be prescribed by a doctor.”

In the core values portion of the competition, participants were put into a room and assigned a task to solve together as a team. Judges evaluated groups based on cooperation.

Bell said, “The teams were given a tarp and a ball. The objective was to flip the tarp over while keeping the ball on the tarp. The girls worked really well together and were very friendly and interactive with other competitors, which is something that the judges seemed to notice.”

The team consists of members Aiyana Arnobit, Mariana Ballesteros, Lisa Fukumuro, Maaya Green, Audrie Lau, Keli Santos, Mary Soxpollard, Kelly Thieu and Mya Wang with coaches James Bell, Lacey Tashima, Griffith Jurgens and Fraga.

“I enjoy working with the team because they are always so positive and enthusiastic,” said Bell. “In robotics, we do the best to assist the students with reaching a desired goal that they want to accomplish, but it is mainly them learning independently and sharing ideas.”

Fraga agreed. “I enjoy seeing students being introduced to robotics and grow to love the programs. The girls are excited, have fun and truly embody the core value, ‘what we discover is more important than what we win.'”