After demonstrating impressive programming skills and innovative creativity at a recent FIRST® LEGO® League Qualifying Tournament, the Middle School Robotics teams with 18 participating students received exciting recognition. Team 1, fireQUACKers, earned the 3rd Place Core Values Award and will advance to the NYC Semi-Finals in March. Team 2, ener-GenZ-ers, received the 1st Place Innovation Project Award and will advance directly to the NYC Championship, also in March. 

FIRST LEGO League is an interactive program that exposes students to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) through a guided, real-world problem solving experience. Throughout the program, students sharpen their critical thinking, coding and design skills by working together to solve an annual robotics challenge. This year’s theme focused on energy, and prompted students to reimagine a better energy future. Students spent time researching where energy comes from, how energy is used, different energy sources and energy consumers, as well as identifying energy problems in their own community. 

Each team created a unique robot to compete in this year’s interactive game, in which the robots collected energy units from different sources around a mat and distributed them to where energy would be consumed. Teams also prepared a short presentation outlining the process used to create their robots, including programming and design. 

Jeremy Joven and Christina Tobajas, Robotics Coaches and Computer Science Teachers, reported that “both our teams did a phenomenal job presenting their research projects and showcasing their robots! We are so proud of their performance at this qualifier event.” 

Congratulations and good luck to the fireQUACKers and ener-GenZ-ers, represented by the following students:

Lila H. ’27

Harriet M. ’27

Clarianni P. ’27

Cambria I. ’28

Olivia H. ’28

Eleanor K. ’28

Jelly W. ’29

Sayuri D. ’29

Kaila M. ’29

Riya M. ’27

Lilly R. ’27

Zola B. ’27

Hilah S. ’28

Indira R. ’28

Sloane L. ’28

Audrey H. ’29

Daisy W. ’29