Cherokee Students compete in State Robot contest

by Feb 24, 2010COMMUNITY sgadugi, NEWS ka-no-he-da0 comments

Two CMS 4-H RezBots Teams competed in

State Lego League Tournament

By Liddell Shannon

CMS 4-H RezBots Assistant Coach

The Terminators team (left-right) : Dakota Ward, Daniel Griffin, Michael George, Ethan Swearengin, and Elijah Arch. (Photo courtesy of Liddell Shannon)

Twelve excited 6th graders boarded a Boy’s Club Charter Bus en route to Greensboro on Friday, Feb. 19 to compete in the State Lego League Robotics Tournament.  They comprised two teams known as The Terminators and A-Wo-Ha-Li.   

The students, members of Cherokee Middle School’s 4-H RezBots Lego Robotics teams, traveled with another SCC GEAR UP sponsored team – the Swain Middle School Technotonics. 

All three teams qualified to participate in the state competition by impressing the judges with their performance in the Regional Tournament at Western Carolina University in January.  Only the top 60 of the 150 North Carolina teams were allowed to compete in Greensboro this year. 

The Competition was held on Saturday at the Greensboro Coliseum, and consisted of four different elements.  Students presented a project about this year’s theme of Smart Moves.  They participated in a creative problem solving activity to evaluate their ability to work as a team.  They met with judges and showed off their robot’s design and programming.  And they participated in three timed robot runs.  During each robot run, the students had two and a half minutes for their robot to accomplish multiple tasks on this year’s playing board.  Each run is scored based on the number of tasks completed.  The more difficult the task, the more points it is worth.

The 4-H RezBots related they would like to thank the sponsors who made this trip and this season possible including: SCC GEAR UP, Cherokee Preservation Foundation, Cherokee Middle School, 4-H Club, The Cherokees, Cherokee Central Schools Athletic Department, Qualla Housing, Apple Construction, Vocational Opportunities of Cherokee, Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission, Panther Construction, Food Lion, and P.I.E.. 

The coaches related they would like to extend a huge thanks to the 4-H RezBot families for all of their help and support this season.  “Without you, this would not have been possible.”