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Hard work pays off as LCC Middle Schoolers qualify for State

LAUREL — LCC Middle School students are benefiting from an innovative new after-school activity.

Before the start of the 2021-22 school year, some parents came to Middle School Principal Mark Leonard with the idea of starting a LEGO League.

Leonard, Laura Nordby, head of High Ability Learning (HAL); and middle school math teacher Alex McKamy all put their heads together.

The result paid dividends as a team of LCC students took advantage of that hard work and their countless hours of practice last week to qualify for State competition.

They competed against 28 teams in three different areas: Innovation Project, Robot Table, and Core Values.

Middle schoolers Dayton Korth, Weston Patefield, Alyza Leonard, Josiah Tasler, James Recob and Nolan Nordby traveled to Columbus to show off their skills.

“It is also a great way for our students to explore and expand in the area of STEM activities as well as learn how to come up with a research project and present their findings,” McKamy said.

The students practiced each Monday after school from 3:15-5 p.m., from the beginning of the school year until now.

“In each practice, they worked on both the innovation project and robot, but also spent some time on team building activities to help with the core values aspect,” McKamy said.

The school has provided six Spike Prime Lego Kits to build the robots as well as a competition map with missions.

For the Innovation Project, the students were challenged to solve a transportation issue within their community.

“They choose to focus on frozen and refrigerated foods and how to keep them at the correct temperature,” McKamy said.

With the help of Jessica Eriksen, co-owner of The Scoop and James Robert, co-owner of Laurel’s Hometown Market, local businesses, they found out that food would be received thawed when it shouldn’t be or freezer burnt.

With that in mind, the Laurel LEGO League put their heads together and researched existing ideas.

They discovered a blanket with some cooling chemicals.

“The students had to write a speech, put together a poster board and innovation binder, as well as come up with a model,” McKamy said.

At the competition, they presented their idea and speech. After their presentation, they were asked questions about their solution.

The next section of the competition was the robot portion.

“They had a presentation of their robot and attachments as well as a question and answer section, but the most exciting part of the day was the robot table,” McKamy said.

On the robot table, the kids had to code directions for their robots to overcome 16 different missions.

Each mission varied in difficulty and points awarded. Through trial and error and picking out which of their robots to do the challenge, they completed their tests.

They also had a core value part of the contests.

“They also had a question and answer portion but were also observed throughout the day on things such as inclusion, teamwork, and respect for others,” commented McKamy.

After all the challenges the participated youth got to have a dance party with all the other competitions before the awards ceremony. McKamy pointed out, “The volunteers running the event did a great job keeping the energy up and making sure everyone was having a great time.

Several awards were given out to volunteers, coaches, and the teams. The LCC team got to bring a second place trophy for their innovation project. “11 of the 28 teams were awarded certificates as state qualifiers. After announcing 10 of the 11 it was looking like a long shot, but the last team to be announced was the LCC Bulldogs,” said McKamy.

Thanks to the help of Karson Brummels, who helped the students with her building expertise; Angela Abts, the local Dakota County 4-H extension office educator who mentored the team; and the Wayne LEGO league, for helping the LCC league with questions and borrowing their competition table through the year, the kids were able to learn so many new things and get the chance to show their skills at state.

“The kids had such a great time competing and are super excited to continue to perfect both their innovation project and their robot for state competition in Grand Island on February 26 at the Raising Nebraska Building,” said coach McKamy.

The public can watch and learn more about what these students do in LEGO League at the February School board meeting.

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