Eighth grade students from Our Lady of the Lakes Catholic School captured fourth place at the Florida First Robotics Competition held at The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach.
The competition was the South Florida Regional Qualifying Tournament as part of the First® Lego® League program by First Inspires.
“I was impressed by the students’ faith throughout the competition,” said Kristina Bacallao, the STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts and Math( coordinator at OLL who also teaches technology for grades 5-8.
“We were the only Catholic school at the competition,” Bacallao said. “Right before the robot portion of the competition, the students prayed to the Holy Spirit for guidance and created a cue word to use when feeling overwhelmed or were beginning to argue. The word – Pickles – and whenever anyone said it, they would all make the Sign of the Cross that helped them re-center and focus.”
In preparation for the competition, the students checked that their robot could perform a variety of tasks within a designated time frame, and created a presentation about the problems between a human and animal interaction and an innovative solution.
At the competition, the team was required to have their robot complete a series of obstacles within 2.5 minutes. The team chose to focus on the decreasing honey bee population due to human factors and how to help. They created a kit that would be sold to individuals, communities, and schools to help create gardens that increase pollination opportunities for honey bees.
The OLL robotics competition team now heads to the South Florida Regional Tournament at Boynton Beach High School on February 25.