Howard County Students Take Top Honors at First Lego League Robotics Competition

February 11th, 2013

A team of ten students from Mount View Middle School took first place for their innovative invention at Maryland’s First Lego League (FLL) Robotics Competition on January 19, 2013. The team, along with two other Mt. View Middle teams, and two teams from Ellicott Mills Middle, qualified for the state tournament during regional competitions.

In addition, other teams from Atholton Elementary, Burleigh Manor Middle, Harpers Choice Middle, Hammond Middle, Murray Hill Middle, Oakland Mills Middle, and Wilde Lake Middle participated in FLL regional competitions this year.

First Lego League provides students age 9-14 with a hands-on, interactive robotics program in a sports-like atmosphere. Teams of up to 10 players focus on team building, problem solving, creativity, and analytical thinking to develop solutions to the Challenge, a problem currently facing the world.

The theme of this year’s Challenge was “Senior Solutions.” Teams conducted research to choose and invent a solution for a a problem that affects people as they age, then presented the invention to people who could benefit. Participants also build and program an autonomous robot to perform various tasks on a playing field.

To learn more about this event, contact Debbie Blum, Resource Teacher for Gifted and Talented Programs at 410-313-6800.

State First Lego League Robotics Competition
Team – Quantum Force, Mount View Middle
1st Place for Innovative Solution at State competition; 1st Place for research in qualifier

• Shelby Desmond
• Logan Fingerhuth
• Vidur Gupta
• Ayush Jain
• Christopher Jones
• Joel Landsman
• Daniel Lieberman
• Evin Moody
• John Reinder
• Anthony Stout

First Lego League Regional Competition Winners
Team – Bearded Stoutinators, Mount View Middle
1st place in Core Values

• Benjamin Anderson
• Matthew Ahn
• Mindy Kang
• Jake Crossan
• Ayushi Roy
• Ananaya Uniyal
• David Stephens
• Anne-Marie Fienkeng
• Connor Choi

Team – Ninja Penguins, Mount View Middle
2nd place Overall award

• Quincy Crawford
• Eric Kelly
• Benjamin Lee
• Matthew Leins
• Spencer Leins
• Thomas Malloy
• David Polefrone
• John Rivers
• Thomas Wilson

All MVMS teams are coached by G/T resource teacher Shelley Stout, technology teacher Keith Janelli, and social studies teacher Brian Walsh.

Team – Techno Eagles, Ellicott Mills Middle
1st Place for Programming and Robot Performance

• Kevin Xu
• Ruoheng Zeng
• Kevin Zhang
• Kenton Wong
• Ericka Anderson
• Caleb Greene
• Matt Hubbard
• Joshua Liu
• Sai Bhamidipati

The EMMS team is coached by technology education Teacher Dan Wood, science teacher Jim Murray, and parent volunteer Haiping Xu.