Riceville Lego League Team
posted on Thursday, May 4, 2017
Lego League is an international competition devoted to helping young people discover and develop a passion for the core learning areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The Riceville Lego League is a team of twelve intelligent and passionate students ranging from 4th to 8th grade. Like other Lego League teams, this group of Riceville students work together to overcome difficult challenges.
The competitions consist of a two minute and thirty second period wh...ere the students work with a robot they programmed to complete as many challenges as possible. Teams are not only judged on the robot missions, but also on their project, robot design and programming, and core values (team work). “The kids have really been challenged, and as their instructor I have been challenged,” Riceville Lego League coach Carol Anderson. “They have learned so much and improved their teamwork and problem solving skills along the way.”
In addition to learning and developing STEM skills, team members work together to complete a service project related to the current year’s challenge. The challenge for this year is “Animal Allies” so the students focused on saving endangered bumblebees by designing and building a bee waterer/feeder using PVC pipe, a deep-dish pizza pan and rocks.
The waterer even included a clever drainage system to prevent overflow. “We designed it with big and little rocks to prevent the bees from drowning,” explains a team member. “Bees like being close to the water, and if the bees get wet, they normally die, so the different size rocks allow them to land safely.”
Last year’s Lego League service project was the successful implementation of glass recycling in Riceville. This year the team hopes to locate the bee waterer/feeders across Riceville and even possibly start selling their product.
The team is begin partially funded this year through a $450 community care grant from Iowa Select Farms. “I am retiring this year, and I want to leave the team fully funded so they don’t have to worry about that aspect of it,” says Coach Anderson. #communitycare #billionplus
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