Team takes fourth, receives invite to international tournament
The St Peter’s Brickbusters FIRST LEGO League team 8631 traveled to Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland, Wisconsin, for the annual state tournament Feb. 23. The team advanced to the state tournament after winning outright grand champion at the sectionals tournament in Waukesha Dec 15.
At the state tournament, the team placed fourth overall, with the third highest robot score.
The Brickbusters received an invitation to the prestigious Razorback Invitational Tournament at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
At this international tournament, the Brickbusters will see teams from the United States as well as participants from among other countries, Korea, Australia, Japan, Israel, Nigeria and Sweden.
“It’s a great opportunity to compete against 80 other teams from around the world in a competitive, co-operative environment. The phrase heard often is ‘co-opertition.’ This means competing against teams, while sharing techniques, information and robot engineering with these same teams,” Brickbusters assistant coach Jason Feyen said.
The co-opertition phrase represents the core of FIRST Lego League. FIRST stands for For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. This organization is anchored by its core values of discovery, innovation, fun, impact, teamwork and inclusion.
Applying these core values to the three facets of a competition, the team is judged on their project, the robot and the core values.
This year’s FLL theme was space, and specifically, “to identify a physical or social problem faced by humans on a long duration space exploration.”
The Brickbusters’ solution is an innovative renewable tower garden system adapted and suited to the unique characteristics of a spacecraft or space habitation.
To learn about their project, the team researched related topics and interviewed several professional contacts, ranging from an organic farmer, a renewable resources expert, a corporate farm supervisor, a dietician, a NASA research fellow and a University Ph.D professor specializing in plant growth and characteristics in space.
Some examples of their community service from this year are making blankets for Bob’s Under the Bridge project, and a toy drive for Hope House, a charitable organization serving homeless families and the community in Milwaukee. They also donated the proceeds of their Christmas wreath sale to Helping Hands and Gerard’s Embrace, both of East Troy. Additionally, the team crafted valentines for The Heritage senior living community in East Troy.
The St. Peter’s Brickbusters team was created 11 years ago by St. Peter’s third grade teacher Jenni Lehman and robotics coach Mike D’Amico. The team’s head coach Liam Coen has been very successful this year with a team of seven rookies and two veterans. Helping coach Coen are robotics coach Mike D’Amico and Feyen, in addition to countless hours of support from their mentors of parents and Brickbusters alumni.
In addition to engineering, research, and programming, community service is a major component of this team to compliment the St. Peter’s mission in the community.
“Much of the success of this team can be attributed to the core values that are embraced and encouraged at St. Peter’s Catholic School,” Feyen said. “The values instilled in these teammates by teachers, administration, parents and school supporters are well aligned with the teamwork the judges are looking for and reward.”
