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Lego, Wood County Christian robotics teams powering ahead

PARKERSBURG -- Two robotics teams in Wood County have a chance to compete in international competitions, and both will take place in Texas.

The First Lego League Tender Defenders and a team from Wood County Christian High School both qualified for their events.

But first they need to raise they money to get there.

The Tender Defenders won the 2020 West Virginia State Champions Award on March 2, and received the only bid to the First Lego League World Festival in Houston April 20-23.

"The Tender Defenders are a community funded robotics team comprised of 9 middle school students, located in Parkersburg, K.C. Doepker, coach of the group, said. "The group participates in the First Lego League® (FLL), a program designed to empower kids (ages 9-14) to be young leaders and innovators."

"This is a wonderful program to get kids interested in science, technology, engineering, and math all while having fun in a team-building, competitive activity," she said.

"Our team not only designs and programs a robot to solve missions, but they also are tasked with researching and developing three presentations displaying FLL Core Values, an innovative solution that solves a problem in the community and their strategic plan for the robot design and game," Doepker said.

The Tender Defenders group is not involved with any school, and relies on public and corporate donations to fund their trips to events.

The team is seeking $10,000 for the entire trip, with parents and friends paying their own way.

"I joined because I really like robotics," said Will Bashaw, one of the team members.

"This is my first year," said Evan McCleary, another team member. "K.C. invited me to this group this year and I really like Lego and robotics, and I was really interested in robotics and I decided to do it this year."

The team members put together the robots using Lego pieces and computer programmed them to move around on an obstacle course picking up various objects, carrying them and depositing them in various locations. They do not use controllers.

The team members are:

* Will Bashaw, 7th grade

* Evan McCleary, 6th grade

* Hayden Carey, 7th grade

* Parker Woods, 6th grade

* Bella Woods, 8th grade

* Kayley Kallka, 6th grade

* Jaylen Kaillc, 7th grade

* Brock Gillespie, 7th grade

* Lilly Pfeifer, 6th grade

All are from Jackson Middle School in Vienna.

The team from the Wood County Christian High School is involved in more advanced robotics and were given a bid to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas May 3-12.

Unlike the Lego robots, the VEX robots have controllers that are operated by team members, and they get the robots around a course to pick up objects and deposit them in certain places, such as see-saws. The object is to put different colored items on in such a way that the ends of the see-saw doesn't touch the floor. Points are awarded for each job accomplished.

"Our school is excited," said Patty Michael, a co-coach with her husband Matt Michael, about having the opportunity to compete. "Our families are excited."

Each round has two components, with the entire round being two minutes. The first part is an autonomous round, where the robots run exclusively programmed and takes 15 seconds, and the second part involves driving the robot to perform tasks.

The team member responsible for programming the robots is Twila Reed. She is one of the team members who actually steer the robot.

Another team member, Jeremy Stoia, said, "We program all our computers to do certain things."

Griffin Wharton, the group's strategist, said, "I do a lot of the strategy and while we're doing competition against two other teams, I stand with them and I talk strategy, tell them the time left, and I communicate if we need more goals, if we're going to win and just all-around strategizing."

The team, which is in its second year of existence, are:

* Katherine Michael

* Twila Reed

* Jeremy Stoia

* Griffin Wharton

* Noah Thompson

The team is trying to raise $18,000, which includes $12,000 for registration into the event, and are seeking sponsors to raise $6,000 for everything else.

Larry Launstein Jr can be reached at llaunstein@newsandsentinel.com.