RAPID RIVER, Mich. (WZMQ) – This weekend, fourth and fifth grade students from Rapid River are downstate for a robotics competition.
Since the beginning of the school year, the Rapid River Cookie Bots have been getting their robot competition-ready.
“We had our first competition before Christmas at Northern Michigan University, which was our qualifying event,” said co-coach Jake Denkins. “We finished second.”
On Saturday, January 11, the team will compete in the FIRST Lego League Challenge State Championship in Mason. This year’s theme is “submerged,” and the team has designed, built, and programmed a robot around that theme.
“We learned about how missions work and how they’re built,” said fourth grade team member Marianna Van Landschoot.
“We looked at the missions first to see which ones would be the easiest and have the fastest time,” explained fifth grade member Colton LaCosse. “We built the robot so we would be capable to do those missions.”
Colton says it takes a lot of hard work to program all the robot’s movements. It also takes diligence and patience to ensure the programming is correct.
“We do the robot three times to see if it works,” said Colton. “If it doesn’t work one of those times, we do it again for three times.”
The Cookie Bots also put their brains to work on an innovation project, which tasked them with solving a real-world problem.
“We decided to go with plastic pollution,” fourth grade team member Brynlee Miron said. “For that solution, we came up with a smart bag. It is a bag that is made up of all healthy materials, and it has a GPS tracker and a Bluetooth device. The GPS tracker knows when you’re at the store, so it will send you a notification not to forget to bring it in.”
If they perform well this weekend, the Cookie Bots could advance to the next stage of the competition and even win a new trophy for their collection. However, they say the best rewards are all the lessons they’ve learned and the friends they’ve made in the Cookie Bots.
“I learned a lot of teamwork and a lot of communication with my teammates,” said Brynlee.
“Just having fun with my teammates,” added Marianna.
“The benefits are crazy,” Denkins said. “Not only do they learn a lot of STEM-based stuff, but they learn teamwork and general communications skills. Don’t worry about how we do, just have fun! The end goal is just to have the kids have fun.”
