Edgewood MS Wins First and Second in Robotics Competition
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Though Edgewood Middle School has done well in the robotics competition before, for the first time Sunday Edgewood took first and second place overall at the annual First Lego League Qualifying Competition in Fort Wayne.
Also this year, five eighth-grade teams took nine of the spots to advance to state competition, whereas in 2010 four teams advanced to state.
Adding to list of accomplishments, Edgewood eighth-grade teams won awards for innovative solution, best presentation and teamwork inspiration.
The seventh-grade team, “Edgewood Ruby,” won for best presentation in competition at Kokomo Saturday. Team members included David Hommie, Kyle Chrisenberry and Kevin Holt.
Because about 100 Warsaw Community Schools students participated in the qualifying competition this year, Warsaw was asked to split up. The eighth-graders competed Sunday at Fort Wayne, while the seventh-grade, Jefferson and Washington elementary school teams competed at Kokomo, according to Ben Barkey, Edgewood science teacher and robotics coach.
This is the fifth year that Edgewood has taken part in the competition, Barkey said, but the first time it won the top two spots. That, and having five of its teams advance to state, is a record for Edgewood.
The first-place overall team, calling themselves “Fighting Twigas,” included Abigail Bultemeier, Gage Cutler, Jennifer Katris, Noah Pollnow, Audrey Rich and Kaitlyn Williams.
“I was really surprised because I didn’t know if we’d win or not,” Bultemeier said.
Cutler said keys to winning included, “How we worked together as a team and we didn’t argue too much.”
“It feels good,” said Pollnow. “Winning helps, but it takes time and the amount of time you put in it helps determine if you win or not.”
On the second-place overall team, the “Pizza People,” were Hannah Babcock, Aarshia Jain, Brooklyn Rummer, Jessica Skeans, Greer Smith and Lindsey Wolfe.
“It felt really good,” said Babcock. “It felt like all our hard work paid off.”
“I think the most difficult thing was putting the programming in,” said Jain. “... It was hard because you had to have the exact parts put together exactly.”
Smith said being an all-girl team was a plus.
“I was surprised,” she said, “but being an all-girls team we could have sleepovers and get together and not be awkward (around each other). I think it was easier to have all girls.”
Barkey said they took a total of 12 teams, with about six students on a team, to the qualifying tournament. Warsaw had 76 eighth-graders, 11 seventh-graders and six elementary students involved in robotics competition over the weekend.
In Indiana, there are 225 teams with nine qualifying sites.
The theme for the competition this year is food safety.
Each team had to build a robot, and the robot has to complete a board dealing with food safety issues. The task could include anything from delivering a pizza to getting rats out of a factory.
The other half of the competition, Barkey said, is coming up with an innovative solution. Student teams researched a safety problem in the food industry and had to come up with a solution to solve the issue. Those solutions included everything from putting QR Codes on food boxes to help people with allergies, to engineering glue on cereal boxes to deter insects.
“It’s all problems the students identified in the food industry that happens,” Barkey said.
Teams with the best overall performance move on to state, which is scheduled for Dec. 10 at IPFW in Fort Wayne.
“When they go to compete, they get scored on four areas,” Barkey said. “Presentation on innovative solution, robot design presentation, teamwork presentation and the points robots make on the map.”
The “Dream Gemada” team, also advancing to state, won the innovative solution award and included Hannah Dawson, Brenda Nunez, Tyler Paseka, Reagan Skaggs, Courtney Steffensmeier, Olivia Timmerman and Alexis Vercauteren.
Best presentation award went to the “Seven Dwarfs and their coach Snow White” team of Ana Hamrick, Cylie Marshall, Shaun McGettrick, Nathan Miller, Paul Motter, Taralyn Moudy and Mikaela Till.
“Seven Dwarfs” and “Duck Busters” were the other two teams moving on to the state contest. Duck Busters includes Kendra Burns, Andrew Harstine, Brittany Kennedy, Mary McGrath, Emily Thrasher and Bonnie Wong.
Receiving the teamwork inspiration award were Jacob Alspaugh, Ashley Francis, Emma Hayward, Natalie Nichols and Erin Sandberg.
While building their robots and preparing the programming, the Edgewood students had some help from volunteers.
“I’m the coach, but we had 12 to 15 high school kids who have done this before come down periodically and be mentors to these kids,” Barkey said.
Grace College professor Dr. Kris Farwell volunteered, as did teachers David Cook and Tyler Bates. Zimmer employees from the microbiology and food health departments helped out, and Zimmer sponsored the teams. Little Crow Foods and the WCS Technology Department also assisted.
“It’s a huge community of people who helped these 100-some kids,” Barkey said.
Jefferson Elementary bussed their students over to Edgewood, while Washington students could just walk, to participate. Barkey said the elementary students’ parents were a huge help.
