St. Mary's Storm Troopers advance in Lego contests

Staff photo by Rob Novit Tessa Burgess and Vincent Yalagan of St. Mary Help of Christians School watch their robot at the Lego regionals on Saturday.

Before the Storm Troopers members prepared for the first competition of the day at the regional First Lego League tournament, teacher/coach Michelle Nelson said she had high hopes for the St. Mary Help of Christians team.

By the end of the day at Aiken Technical College, those hopes were realized, as the Storm Troopers squad qualified for the upcoming state contest at Clemson University.

"The kids have done well, mostly at the end," Nelson said. "They worked well under pressure. The missions are very complicated, and we were worried that we could accomplish only a few. But we discovered that other schools were doing that too, so we felt pretty good."

Chukker Creek Elementary School fielded four teams at the regionals, and Oakwood-Windsor Elementary School brought a Junior Lego team of third-graders who did a demonstration program.

The Lego League is a component of the First Robotics program. The Aiken High-based M'Aiken Magic robotics program is for grades 9-12, while Lego League is for grades 4-8.

The kids on each team had to produce research projects related to climate and compete in mini-tasks or missions with autonomous robots.

The missions "were hard to program," said St. Mary student Eric Esselman. "We had to make sure everything was just right."

The Lego League program in South Carolina started modestly but has mushroomed in recent years with regionals held throughout the state. Pat O'Neill started the M'Aiken Magic program more than six years ago and now coordinates the regional Lego competition.

O'Neill cited the help of many people, including criminal justice students from the Aiken County Career Center, M'Aiken Magic team members and ATC officials. Kimberly-Clark and Bridgestone Firestone corporations provided judges for the event.

"There are a lot of teams across the state," said O'Neill. "This regional will only get bigger."

Bruce Page, a IT specialist at the Savannah River Site, brought an unusual perspective to the regional event. His daughter, Alecia Kinard, is the Chukker Creek Lego team coordinator as the gifted and talented teacher. Page's son Matthew, a fifth-grader, is in Kinard's class.

"Matthew loves Legos," said Page. "We got him a 700-piece kit. It's fun to watch this, to see who's going to be the leader and who's going to help."

Kinard said the experience is new and nervewracking, "but I've thoroughly enjoyed spending our class time working on it."

In his first year with the robotics program, Matthew said he enjoys programming the robot and making up skits. As for having his sister as his teacher, well that's fun, too.

Other schools qualifying at the regionals were Doby's Mill Elementary School, Southwood Middle School (two teams), League Academy of Communication Arts, the Charlestown Center, Dent Middle School, Pleasant Hill Middle School, Choice Home School and Carolina Springs Middle School.

Contact Rob Novit at rnovit@aikenstandard.com.