Eastern Iowa Lego robotics team heading to world championships

CEDAR RAPIDS - With a robot made using Lego blocks in hand, a team of youngsters from six Linn County schools is preparing to head to St. Louis in April, where they'll compete against students from around the globe for a world championship.

'It's a whole new level,” said Peter Kamp, a seventh-grader at Excelsior Middle School in Marion and one of 10 members of 'Red Dangerous,” which competes as part of the First Lego League, a competition that encourages students to apply engineering, science and math skills to develop solutions to real-world challenges. 'I don't know what to expect ... but we've just got to do our best.”

Red Dangerous already has been successful, taking the top prize at January's First Lego League state competition in Ames.

'We spend a lot of time on this, more than a lot of groups in the area, which probably contributes to how well we did,” said Shelley Kamp, Peter's mother and one of the team's adult coaches. 'We're continuing to make improvements and talk about it.”

The world championships take place in April in St. Louis and Houston. Red Dangerous - made up of fifth- through seventh-graders from six schools in Cedar Rapids and Marion - is among 108 teams selected to compete in St. Louis April 26-29. Another 109 teams are to compete in Houston the week prior.

They are among more than 32,000 teams from around 80 countries participating in First Lego League.

In the run-up to the state competition, Red Dangerous spent its season building a robot - made from Lego products and other moving parts - to perform 'missions” during a game on a 4-by-8-foot table. They also worked on a presentation based on this year's First Lego League theme 'Animal Allies.”

'They had to look at how humans interact with animals, and vice versa, and how that can be improved,” Shelley Kamp said.

The team initially decided to focus on spawning salmon and the annual salmon run, during which the fish migrate by swimming to upper parts of rivers where they deposit eggs on gravel beds. The students studied the issue of harmful algal blooms that occur when colonies of algae grow out of control in large bodies of water and produce toxic effects on people, birds and marine life, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The cause of algal bloom, sometimes called 'red tide,” can be contributed to several factors, according to NOAA. Kamp said the team eventually decided to focus on agricultural runoff and its correlation to algae growth. The students studied planted fields, livestock and urban use of fertilizer.

'Their goal was to help the salmon by reducing the agricultural runoff so the algal blooms don't occur,” Kamp said.

Red Dangerous has one girl and nine boys and also is led by coach Eric Tastad and mentor Randy Bachman.

The team is sponsored by Imagination Iowa and Samsung Electronics.

To learn more about First Lego League, go to firstinspires.org.

MEET THE TEAM

Here are the students competing April 26-29 at the FIRST LEGO League national competition in St. Louis:

Nikhil Anand - seventh-grader at Oak Ridge Middle School, Marion.

Riya Anand - fifth-grader at Echo Hill Elementary School, Marion.

Tejas Gururaja - sixth-grader at Oak Ridge Middle School, Marion.

Levi Hodge - fifth-grader at Isaac Newton Christian Academy, Cedar Rapids.

Peter Kamp - seventh-grader at Excelsior Middle School, Marion.

Aadarsh Kumar - seventh-grader at Excelsior Middle School, Marion.

Arjun Palaniappan - seventh-grader at Oak Ridge Middle School, Marion.

Ethan Strecker - sixth-grader at Prairie Creek Intermediate, Cedar Rapids.

Leif Tastad - fifth-grader at Echo Hill Elementary School, Marion.

Evan Tominsky - fifth-grader at Erskine Elementary School, Cedar Rapids.

Coaches - Eric Tastad and Shelley Kamp.

Mentor - Randy Bachman.

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