Trout Creek Robomaniacs make way to postseason

Football has the Super Bowl, baseball has the World Series, and Lego robotics has the High Tech Kids First Lego League Open.

“It's our Super Bowl,” said Daisy Carlsmith, the supervising teacher of Trout Creek and the instructor for the Robomaniacs. She said the four-member team was overjoyed when they heard they were invited to the competition, which is being held at the University of Minnesota May 1-3.

“I don't think excited is the word. It's more than excited, It was ecstatic,” she said.

Sixth-grader Mikalla Gardner, seventh-graders Neal Jopling and Jacob Dean and second-grader Holly Carlsmith earned the trip to Minneapolis by placing second in the robotics performance competition at the FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology - Lego League robotics competition at Montana State University Jan. 12.

At the Bozeman competition, the four students from the Trout Creek gifted and talented class used the two robots that they started building from Legos in October to perform task such as: placing a solar cell on a house, planting trees, placing windmills and moving alternative energy sources.

Trout Creek, with 56 students enrolled, was one of the smallest of the 38 schools competing in Bozeman and with Carlsmith receiving the first place award for Outstanding Mentor was the only school to receive two awards. And now with the Robomaniacs being invited to a tournament that will be comprised of approximately 64 teams from North and South America and Europe, Carlsmith said the Robomaniacs “underdog” story continues. “It feels like a movie. It's like something you watch on television rooting for the underdog,” She said.

Carlsmith said the team has been hard at work on their robots since the Bozeman competition and before they received an official invitation to the High Tech Kids tournament March 5. She said the four students work on the two robots Thursdays after school and will probably have to start to work on them Fridays and Saturdays as well.

For the Minnesota competition the students will have to re-engineer and re-program their robots to do more task and they are also working on “tweaking” their presentations, said Carlsmith. She said the team is building the two robots to find out which is the most effective. She said besides working on reprogramming the robots the girls have also added some gold “bling” to their robot and she now calls it “Blinky.”

She said that the boys' robot is still nameless.

Ernest Scherzer, the Trout Creek resident who helped the students build their robots for the Bozeman competition, is continuing to work with the students to prepare them for the Minnesota competition. Carlsmith said that Scherzer experience was invaluable at the Robomaniacs first tournament and they plan on taking him to Minnesota. Scherzer has taught science for 34 years and was the only member of the Robomaniacs that had been to a robotics competition before January.

Carlsmith said she continues to be amazed at what her team can do. “It's a wonderful team,” she said. “Kids that young can do amazing things,” she added.

Carlsmith said she has no idea how the young engineers come up with ideas they do; ideas like attaching a flexible arm to the robot that can pick up a truck and tow it home. She said she would be surprised if none of the four went on to become an engineer.

But this competition is more than just learning about science and engineering, said Carlsmith. She said with people coming across the world to attend it will be a multi-cultural experience for her student.

“Who knows when we'll have this opportunity again,” she said. “See what playing with Legos will do,” she added.

To make sure the Robomaniacs take advantage of this opportunity, Carlsmith said they are seeking assistance from the community and businesses to donate funds toward the cost of travel, lodging and registration for the event.

According to the First Lego League's Web site, the league was formed in 1998 and tries to engage younger children in playful and meaningful learning while helping them discover the fun in science and technology. The league has reached more than 90,000 kids in 45 countries. More information on the High Tech Kids First Lego League Open can be found at www.hightechkids.org.