At a recent robotics competition, Bloomington-Normal students learned skills they'll likely use throughout their lives.
The First Lego League held a regional event at Benjamin Elementary School Saturday. Twelve teams of students — many of which were making their competition debut — demonstrated their robots to a panel of judges scoring based on innovation, design, scoring and adherence to the league’s core values.
Core values include gracious professionalism, impact, innovation, discovery, inclusion, teamwork and "coopetition."
“They learn how to work in a team," said Devanand Chatrathi, head referee for the event. "They learn how to take challenges. They learn how to handle disappointments."
Students had three chances to demonstrate their robots’ ability to complete certain tasks, allowing kids opportunities to improve their bots between rounds.
Asher Wughrich, a student competing as code owner for the Potter Bots, said it was a good learning experience.
“They kept asking us a bunch of questions, like, how much would this cost, and we didn't even think about that," he said.
Chris Tabor volunteered for the event. His son entered Bloomington's last robotics competition in 2018 and now studies electrical engineering in college.
"That was exciting as a parent, to have your child be interested in something that could potentially build their own career,” he said, adding the students learn hard and soft skills. "They have to learn how to be gracious when they do win and accept losses when it happens, but also learning skills toward a career."
A parent volunteering to coach a team or work an event their child competes in is not uncommon. It's less common for volunteers to continue when their child stops competing.
Tabor said he had no qualms about returning to the First Lego League.
"I've been doing that for a couple years, since he's left. So it's one of those things where you really want the program to be sustained,” said Tabor. “Because how many are actually going to be a professional hockey player versus building skills where I'm going to be an engineer of some sort? There's much more options for the students.”
