The Chief Umtuch Middle School’s DUPLO Dinos of Battle Ground are hoping for more success when they compete at the Oregon state competition in the First LEGO League Challenge, June 13 at Liberty High School in Hillsboro, Oregon.
The DUPLO Dino’s took home the Champion’s Award during a qualifying event at Intel’s Jones Farm Campus in Hillsboro on Dec. 9.
The competition entails each team competing in a robotic game, in which students design a robot and attachments for the season’s designed tasks. The second aspect includes completing an innovation project with this season’s theme: the arts. This excited the DUPLO Dinos’ members as they’re all in the Chief Umtuch Middle School band.
For their innovation project, the DUPLO Dinos created a website to help ease the way for someone to pursue musical interests without prior experience.
“We’ve named this Music Oasis, and since all of our members are in band and invested in music, it helps people get into music when they don’t really know when to start,” team member Gavin DeMoss said. “It has resources for learning music, getting instruments, getting sheet music and [other] things that would be very useful if you didn’t know how to get into music.”
Team member Micah Hoyt designed the robot named George over the summer so the team could be ready right out of the gates to the season.
The robotics team has helped Hoyt set a career goal early in life.
“I’ve actually been interested in an engineering degree since I started robotics,” Hoyt said.
Other students enjoy the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program because they think their futures will involve a STEM environment.
“I started robotics five years ago, and I really like building, so I might want something to do with that, but I do want to stay in the STEM field,” team member Kara Doughty said.
LEGO robotics hasn’t gained popularity in southwest Washington, so the Battle Ground team competes in Oregon’s LEGO Robotics League. When the team travels to the state championship this weekend, members will be accompanied by 55 teams of similar-aged, like-minded students, and the DUPLO Dinos enjoy the friendly competition.
The league follows a motto of “gracious professionalism,” and the team is committed to maintaining a competitive but respectful and encouraging atmosphere.
“When it comes to a few days before the competition, it seems like it all just kind of comes together, and then going to a competition and just letting them present the hard work that they’ve done, just that part of it is amazing,” coach Jon Nesbitt said. “There’s two months worth of work that they’re presenting for a couple of hours on a Saturday. It’s super cool to see that, and then the excitement when they won and everything … is just a pleasure.”
Both Nesbitt and coach Beth Doughty encourage more teachers and students to be a part of LEGO robotics. For more information on the Oregon league, The Oregon Robotics and Outreach Program, visit ortop.org.
