Yorktown Team Wins Lego Robotics Tournament

• Editor's Note: Thanks to Ram Burugula for sharing the pictures and information with Patch.

The Yorktown Heights based robotics team "Hotshot Hotwires" won first place in the First Lego League (FLL) Robotics tournament held at the Grady Elementary School in Elmsford on Feb. 2.

The team will now compete with the other top teams in the Hudson Valley region on Feb. 23 at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie.

The Hotshot Hotwires team members include students from Mildred E. Strang Middle School, Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School, Somers Middle School and Crompond School.

The tournaments are organized by the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) non-profit organization and the Lego group. The First Lego League (FLL) is a robotics program created to encourage Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) among for 9 to 14 year olds. 

The FLL competitions consist of two parts – robot building and programming to navigate an obstacle course and a research project to identify and solve a real world problem. This year’s theme is Senior Solutions – helping seniors Independent, Engaged and Connected.

The Hotshot Hotwires team has worked over the last five months on building and programming their Lego Mindstorm robot to complete as many missions as possible in this year’s challenge. For the research project, students interviewed Yorktown seniors at YCCC to identify the problems they face in everyday life. The students chose to work on improving the walking experience for seniors. 

They came up with an idea called “Hydroshoes” which relieves seniors of foot pains. In the process of developing this idea they discovered interesting facts about pressure sensors, and Hydraulic, Pneumatic, and Electric actuators.

For more information about FLL, visit http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/fll/.