Sage Ridge FIRST LEGO League Robotics Teams Qualify For State Championship

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Sage Ridge School

Dec 6 2023

Sage Ridge 4th- and 5th-Grade FIRST LEGO League Robotics Team Qualifies For State Championship

Four Sage Ridge School teams competed in the Northern Nevada FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Challenge Qualifier for Washoe County at Mendive High School in Sparks on December 2, 2023. Two of the four Scorpion teams qualified for the January Northern Nevada FLL State Championship at the University of Nevada, Reno.

FIRST LEGO League “introduces STEM to children through fun, exciting hands-on learning. Participants gain real-world problem-solving experiences through a guided, global robotics program, helping today’s students and educators build a better future together.”

Thirty-five teams from Northern Nevada competed in Saturday’s qualifiers, with only 11 teams advancing to State Championships. Our students spent many hours preparing for these competitions.

Each team completed timed robot game missions with their crafted and coded robots and a presentation to a panel of judges on an innovation project, robot design, and core values.

Teams Sanic the Hot Dog (4th- and 5th-grade students) and Sage Circuits (5th- and 6th-grade students) qualified for State, with Team Sanic the Hot Dog winning a second-place Innovation Project Award. The Sage Circuits placed third in the robot game component for points scored in a 2.5-minute match, successfully navigating challenging tasks.

5th- and 6th-Grade Sage Ridge Team Qualifies for FIRST LEGO League Robotics State Championship.

The Innovation Project Award required teams to “prepare a live, engaging presentation to explain the work you have done on your innovation project.” In preparation for the competition, each team identified a problem to solve, conducted research and development, designed a new solution, created a model or prototype, collected feedback to inform iterations, and practiced communicating their solution effectively.

The 4th and 5th graders on Team Sanic the Hot Dog chose to explore how technology and the arts can help engage others. Their chosen topic? Frogs.

The team wanted to educate people on frogs by employing a more experiential and multisensory style of learning that is entertaining and better suited to information retention. The students interviewed experts to assist in research on education, psychology, and amphibians. Inspired by rollercoasters, Team Sanic the Hot Dog created detailed prototypes of a ride that mimicked the life cycle of a frog, utilizing feedback to develop their final version for the competition.

The team presented their “ride” to a teacher and students to see if it would be an effective way to learn and retain information on a topic.

"The resounding response was YES and that there was an interest in other rides that might mimic the carbon cycle, the digestive process or the metamorphosis of an insect,” Team Sanic the Hot Dog Coach Jin Chang said.

Congratulations to all of our Sage Ridge teams on transforming LEGO bricks into machines with purpose, and best of luck to Team Sanic the Hot Dog and Team Sage Circuits at State on January 27, 2024!

Sage Ridge School FIRST LEGO League Robotics Teams

Team Doges (7th and 8th Grade)