Schools
Local Robotics Team Takes Bronze Medal in World Tournament
"Robowiz," a team of students mostly from Centreville and Chantilly, traveled to Florida last week for the FLL World Invitational Open 2012.
A local robotics team, consisting mainly of students from Rocky Run Middle School, won the bronze medal at an international competition last week.
Eight students from Rocky Run, Greenbriar West Elementary and Longfellow Middle School competed in the First Lego League (FLL) World Invitational Open, held in Florida from May 3-6. The team—named "Robowiz"—started working on a scientific project for the invitational last summer, devoting 10 hours a week to research and planning.
Robowiz decided to research Ecoli, and how to prevent it. They named their project, "Combat Lettuce-Ecoli Awesomely & Naturally"—or C.L.E.A.N. for short—and came up with a ground-breaking, innovative and environmentally-friendly way to kill the bacteria on produce in grocery bags.
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Over the course of the school year, the students stayed active with the project, meeting two times a week to work on it. As the competition grew closer, they increased meetings to three to five times a week, for three hours each time. It's been a huge time commitment.
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"Usually the season ends in December, but then we were told that we were selected," said Seema Prasad, a mentor for the group.
The students' hard work paid off at the championship, as they took third place overall. A patent is pending on the idea.
The competition attracted 61 championship teams from 15 countries around the world, including Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Columbia, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Peru, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Spain and the United States. It was hosted by the University of South Florida and Legoland.
The team's members are:
- Abha Agrawal, Centreville, 14, Rocky Run
- Adithya Varadan, Chantilly, 12, Rocky Run
- Akshay Balaji Chantilly, 12, Rocky Run
- Daniel Mitchell, Chantilly, Rocky Run
- Jami Park, Chantilly, Rocky Run
- Neeraj Prasad, Vienna, 13, Longfellow
- Nitya Agrawal, Centreville, 12, Greenbriar West
- Shomik Ghose, Chantilly, 13, Rocky Run
Balaji Subramaniam and Roli Agrawal coach the team.
—Erica Hendry contributed to this report
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