Robotics Competition

The St. James robotics team competed in the First Lego League competition held at Hillsborough High School. In the First Lego League, the students design and program a robot using Lego pieces. They also research and propose a solution to a real-life problem. They are also judged on their teamwork. 

This year, the students picked the team name "Wild Catfish." Mia did a great job designing the logo for our t-shirts!

Here is the robot with the "white wall" attachment. This allows the robot to push items around the board. It has a hook on one end to push a lever needed to complete one of the Lego tasks.

Mia and Tamia are checking that the robot is running smoothly and is ready to compete. Josh and Michael are on the other end of the table helping to troubleshoot. In between judging sessions, the students can visit the other teams and compare robots. That helps us get design ideas for next year.

Paul and Kayla are using the iPad to check one of the programs. The students use a program on the iPad to give the robot instructions. These programs are copied to the robot's memory. During the competition, the students are only allowed to use programs that are already stored on the robot.

Josh and Paul are waiting for our team's turn to run the robot.

 Thomas and Josh are ready to start the robot game! All of the tasks the robot completes are built using Legos. The robot drops items in specific locations, retrieves objects, and interacts with levers or handles. We are awarded points for completing each task. The robot only has 2.5 minutes so the students need to work quickly.

In addition to designing a robot, the students research real-life problems and propose an original solution. This year the topic was the human water cycle. Our display board helps explain the problem and solution to the judges and the other teams. The students proposed an original idea for saving water. A hydroponics greenhouse could use its waste water to grow algae for biofuel. The judges were impressed with the team's knowledge of the topic and the variety of sources they used to gather information. We won the research award for the competition.

Here is the team with our trophy for the research award. Some of the students had to leave before the picture to be on time for the SJS basketball game. Congratulations to the team!!

Math Games Club

The students in grades 3-5 have the opportunity to join the Math Games Club. The purpose of this club is to enjoy learning Math skills but participating in games that make math fun.  For this meeting we will be used glow sticks to learn about Geometry! The students made individual shapes and worked in a group to make geometric patterns.

SJS Robotics Team Gets Ready to Compete

Our big robotics competition is Saturday, and the Robotics Team is hard at work getting ready.

This is our robot, which the students named Karl the Kraken. Our league uses Lego Mindstorms robots to perform tasks on a 4x8 foot playing field. All of the objects needed for the tasks are also made out of Legos.

Here is our scrimmage held last Sunday at St. Joseph H.S. This event gave our team a chance to practice under the same conditions as the real competition. The referees checked our robot to make sure that we followed all the design rules required for our competition.

We only have two and a half minutes to complete as many tasks as possible. Each task earns a different number of points. Here, Josh and Robby are getting the robot set up.

Our team has three chances to run the robot and we are judged based on our top score. Every round we have a different team of students operating the robot.

On Sunday, our team also had a chance to practice giving our project presentation. The scrimmage judges said that we had interesting ideas and a polished presentation. We can't wait to wow the competition judges next Saturday!

This diorama shows our proposed solution, a hydroponics garden that uses its waste water to grow algae biofuel.

 Tamia is working on a model of our proposed system for growing algae. The device is called an algal turf scrubber. Green yarn represents algae. The algae grows on a plastic mesh and can be easily removed for harvesting. When the algae has cleaned the water, it is safe to release into the environment.

Zumba Kids Club

Zumba Kids Club has had two meetings so far and the children are absolutely loving the music and dance moves!  We are having fun and getting some exercise!  The kindergarten and first grade Zumba members sure do have some great moves!  Check us out!