Girl Scouts earn first place trophies at robotics competition

Pictured Above: The Nerdy Ninjas, St. Joes, Avon Lake

Pictured Above: Lionettes, Lorain Prepatory Academy

Girl Scouts of North East Ohio (GSNEO) is celebrating a pair of first place trophies awarded to two Girl Scout robotics teams at the Buckeye Regional competition at Hathaway Brown High School in Shaker Heights on December 4.  This is an exciting start to the FIRST LEGO® League competition season for the ten Girl Scouts of North East Ohio teams.

A first place award for innovation and strategy went to the St. Joes team from Avon Lake called "The Nerdy Ninjas."  This award recognizes a team that uses solid engineering practices and a well-developed strategy to design and build an innovative, high-performing robot.  The Nerdy Ninjas received first place for team spirit in last year's competition.

The Lorain Preparatory Academy team, Lionettes, won a first place award for inspiration.  This award recognizes a team that is empowered by their FIRST LEGO® League experience and displays extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit.  This returning team received the Teamwork Award last year.  Their coach received the Adult Mentor Award.

The "Bioncle Bots" from the Arts Academy of Lorain received a Gracious Professional Pin for displaying gracious professionalism.  The Mary B. Martin team, known as the Queen Bees, tied with the Arts Academy, which was a returning team.  The "Woodhill Wonders" from Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority scored the third highest table points out of all of our Girl Scout teams. 

Girl Scout teams from Youngstown (Robot Rockstars) and Warren (The Swagg Divas) will be competing on Saturday, December 11, at the FIRST LEGO® League Regional Qualifying Tournament at Warren G. Harding High School in Warren.  The Akron team (Lego Ladies) is competing the following weekend at Badger High School, and on January 9, two teams from Stark County (Alliance, Flyer Power and Canton, Queen Bees) will compete at the North East Ohio tournament at Hudson Middle School.

 "Girl Scouts is dedicated to inspiring young girls to be science and technology leaders by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) skills," said Girl Scouts of North East Ohio CEO Daisy Alford-Smith.

GSNEO was recently awarded the FIRST Grant funded by the Motorola Foundation.  This is the second year Motorola has supported Girl Scout teams in the FIRST LEGO® League robotics competition.  The $6,000 grant will provide funds for three new FLL teams.

Robots, built entirely out of Lego pieces, come in a kit that can be assembled in a day.  After the robot is built, it stands about five inches tall and three inches wide.  It has a ‘brain’ component and is battery charged.  The robot is plugged into a laptop so that it can be programmed to perform specific tasks.  The girls can add additional attachments, including arms to grab or push something, but the attachments must be Lego pieces.

Each year, FIRST issues a set of challenges that a robot must accomplish in 2 ½ minutes.  The teams must design, build and program the robot to accomplish these tasks using sensors, motors, gearing, general engineering principals, and computer software.  In addition, the teams must do research based on a theme (i.e. transportation) and prepare a presentation about some portion of that topic (i.e. newscast, game show, song or skit).

To learn more about Girl Scouts STEM programs and the robotics competition, please contact Suzie Dills at sdills@gsneo.org.