SVDP Knights LEGO Robotics takes 5^th place in competition; Wins Programming Award

The St. Vincent de Paul School LEGO Knights Robotics team spent the Fall working on the Food Factor Challenge.  The challenge, which was announced in September, had nine students in 5^th to 7^th grade building, programming and testing a robot to solve a number of food safety related challenges.  As well as building the robot, the students chose egg safety for their research project which challenged the team to design safer ways of processing and handling food.

On Saturday, November 20^th the St. Vincent de Paul LEGO Robotics team placed 5^th out of 18 teams and won the Best Programming Award in a regional competition hosted by RoboRaiders Robotics of Hillsborough High School.  The team spent the morning in front of panels of judges explaining their research on food safety as well as the design of their robot.  In the afternoon the LEGO Knights faced off against the other teams in battle as the robots attempted a variety of missions.  Team members waited around anxiously by the score screen and jumped with joy when the Knights were listed as 5^th place.  During the presentation of the Programming award, the LEGO Knights were sited for their excellent use of sensors which created a highly efficient robot capable of performing a variety of missions.   More than 200,000 students in 55 countries around the world are expected to participate in the Challenge this year.