SCHUYLKILL HAVEN - Two Lego Robotics teams from St. Ambrose School will travel to the University of Delaware's Bob Carpenter Center on Saturday to compete in the champions tournament in the First Lego League.
The teams traveled to the qualifying tournament Saturday and returned with top awards.
The theme for this year's event is "Senior Solutions" with teams designing and creating both a project and robot.
There are 13 students total on both teams in fifth through eighth grades.
"I'm extremely proud of the accomplishments of these kids," said coach Ed Johnson in an email. "All the ideas come from them. They have worked hard for the past five months and their hard work has paid off."
Johnson said that the Red Team's research project and product development won first place in the project category, in which members developed a tool called HALO - Hook And Lift Operator - a product intended to help someone in a wheelchair raise and lower the footrest without assistance.
It was developed based on input from residents at Rest Haven nursing home, Schuylkill Haven.
While The White Team's project is called Exercise Lego Product, an invention to help seniors with daily living activities. It's a mobile therapy board to help improve motor skills, hand-eye coordination, dexterity and strength by repeating activities on the board, such as opening a medication bottle, turning a door knob and flipping a light switch.
The White Team's success came in the robot design category and it received first place honors for the technical design of the robot and for its ability to perform consistently in the competitive robot rounds.
Robots are built with Legos and are programmed to perform commands with Lego Mindstorms NXT.
The White Team's robot, named Roger, has treads for wheels and was able to retrieve and deploy several items on the mission board Saturday. It then climbed stairs to finish perfectly balanced on an unstable platform.
Both teams are excited for the chance to compete in the champions tournament this weekend.
"We can do good with dumb luck," said Nicholas Vaupel, 14, of Auburn, a member of the White Team.
Vaupel said Tuesday members are hoping they will be able to balance the robot on the platform again since it gives them 95 points.
"That's kind of our claim to fame," Vaupel said. "If we get that, we're good."
"We did it twice in the competition out of three, so I think we'll get it," said Stephanie Zolynski, 11, of Auburn, another member of the White Team.
Christine Johnson, an adviser and the wife of the coach, said Tuesday the students have been working on the robots since September and they were built in several after-school session, a total of about three hours.
In addition to Ed and Christine Johnson, Kathi Sweeney and Mary Ann Durant also are assisting in advising the students.
Christine Johnson said that in addition to panels of judges inspecting the robots and the teams' research, the teams were also expected to display certain core values of FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology - the organization that sponsors First Lego League.
Values include characteristics such as "gracious professionalism," teamwork, friendly competition, sharing and having fun.
"There will be 42 teams there on Saturday," Christine Johnson said. They're anticipating around 1,000 students total to be at this event."
She said there are 36 teams in the Junior league for K-3 and 34 teams for the Tech Challenge involving grades 7-12.
"It's the largest single Lego event in the country," Christine Johnson said.