NEXTGEN ROBOTICS TEAM WINS FIRST LEGO LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP

Moves On To World Championship

WEXFORD, PA, February 21 - The middle school robotics team NextGen Robotics, hosted by MySTEM Academy, won the First Place Director’s Award at the 2021 FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Western Pennsylvania Championship. In addition to the 1st place overall among the 16 participating teams, NextGen Robotics also got the first place in the Robot Game and the Global Innovation Project Award. FLL is an annual competition that judges teams on three aspects: Core Values, Innovation Project, and Robot Design. 

The team consists of local students Alex Lopez, Andrew Woods, Karthik Palled, Owen McKernan, Prisha Dargan, Sameer Gosalia, Shivum Telang, Sritej Padmanabhan, Ronit Ginde, and Zach Manczka. They each dedicated over 300 hours since June 2020, meeting partly remotely and partly in small groups at MySTEM Academy’s center in Wexford, PA, to build and program an autonomous robot to solve 14 missions in 2.5 minutes; design and create a prototype, modular, low-cost weight training system using professional CAD software and 3d printers; and teach robotics and coding to local and international children.

As the region’s first place champions, the team qualified to attend the FLL World Festival in Detroit, Michigan, in August 2021, with 70 teams from all over the world. As the recipient of the Global Innovation Project Award, NextGen Robotics has also been nominated to submit their Innovation Project to the next level.

Congratulations to our 2020 and 2021 FLL Teams

FLL is an international program created by inventor Dean Kamen to promote science, technology, engineering, and math among children ages 9-14. FLL events consist of ​3 components:

• A ​robot game, where team members build and program LEGO robots to ​solve various missions;
• A ​project, where they research a problem of their choice related to the year​'s​ theme​;
• Core Values, where they learn to work as a team and to compete in a spirit of friendly "coopertition."​

​FLL is meant as an opportunity for children to learn science and technology, teamwork, project management, decision-making, and other important tools they'll need to succeed in the professional world. MySTEM Academy focuses on mentoring the children to succeed, not on winning a​n award. Winning is a consequence of how much effort the children invest in solving the ​robot game, conducting and presenting the ​project, and practicing core values.