By Brenda Jefferies, REVIEW STAFF

Learning life skills is child’s play for one group of local kids.

At least, that’s how it starts out for the students who participate in the FIRST Lego League and FIRST Robotics Competitions (FRC). Before long the elementary school teams, organized locally by coach Matt Alderson, move from noodling around with the familiar, multi-coloured blocks to a new level of problem solving that see them create a robot able to compete in sports games at the high school level.

“It’s a toy, but it’s a powerful tool,” explained Alderson, a Waterdown resident and engineering manager at RMT Robotics in Grimsby. “The kids have to build, test and refine (their robot) to accomplish a goal.

“The kids get hooked on the robot side of things, but then they have to figure out why something didn’t work. That’s when it becomes a math lesson or a science lesson.”

Alderson introduced the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League (FLL) to Guardian Angels Catholic Elementary School five years ago when both his children attended there; now, with his oldest in high school, he is also overseeing the St. Mary Catholic Secondary FRC team. As well, he helped start a team at St. Thomas Catholic Elementary School in Waterdown, which is competing for the first time this year.

Each elementary school team can have up to 10 members; students in Grade 3 and up are eligible to participate. The Guardian Angels Robot Force 2011 (GARF XI), comprised of eight students in Grades 6-8, has risen to the challenge of this year’s theme, Food Factor.

GARF won the robot programming portion of the regional FLL competition in Niagara in December and moved on to take second place overall out of 64 teams competing at the provincial championship at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) in January. The first-place team goes on to compete at the FLL festival in St. Louis, Missouri this spring.

“We were one step away from that opportunity,” said Alderson, who is hopeful the team may still get a call to show their stuff on the international stage, at the upcoming invitational meet in Germany.

But the real reward, he said, is the skills the kids take away from the process. Each team is judged in three areas: a robot game in which their creation must complete a task; teamwork and executing an effective solution, and a research project.

To fit this year’s theme, the teams were charged with programming their robot to retrieve a model of bacteria that was threatening to contaminate the food source and move it to a nearby sink.

The teamwork portion of the competition is judged after the team is given a task to solve, which entails defining the problem breaking it down and agreeing on an effective solution – “soft” skills that will serve the team members well in any career, noted Alderson.

For the research portion of the Food Factor challenge, GARF focused on where food comes from, how it’s made and how it gets to the table safely. The team visited Beverly Greenhouses, where they learned how cucumbers are cultivated and challenges the farmers face. They also visited the Ministry of Food and Agriculture facility in Guelph.

“The kids can work on problems real scientists are working on,” explained Alderson.

An example of this is when the team considered the issue of food spoilage in Third World countries and discovered the zeer clay pot, which is insulated with sand to work as a refrigerator to keep foods fresh. The students performed experiments with the shape, design and materials used for the zeer pots, and came up with their own version.

“They sent the ‘new and improved’ zeer to a non-profit group in Sudan,” said Alderson. “It’s amazing that they came up with something on their own that could help someone in another part of the world using scientific principles.”

Awards

The St. Thomas team, which is headed up by teacher Nancy Russo, won an award for teamwork at the regional event in Niagara and Alderson was named Coach of the Year at the UOIT meet. The St. Mary’s team, which is in its rookie year, is working on its full-size robot, which will compete in a simulated basketball game at the University of Waterloo meet March 22-24. Waterdown District High School’s robotics team, also in its first year, will compete at the Toronto regionals this spring.

Whatever the outcome, Alderson is happy to spread the word about all the FLL and FRC have to offer.

“Anybody who goes to one of these competitions, you get hooked on it,” he said. “Kids that have been on an elementary school team can’t wait to get on a high school team. And anyone who sees a FIRST team on a resume know the kids have these skills and there are opportunities for scholarships.”

“It opens doors for a career in technology for them, and makes it cool to be an engineer or a scientist.”