Students from Ocean Palms Elementary School tied for number one in the state of Florida in an international robotics competition recently.
OPE’s “The Sis Squad” – comprised of second grade student Lily and fifth grade student Morgan – received 245 points in the Wonder League Robotics Competition, landing them a spot in the top 30 for the 9 to 12 age bracket and tied for first place in the state. That score placed the team in the top 1 percent of more than 5,000 competition registrants; the team will now go on to compete for a $5,000 STEM grant and other prizes.
A total of nine OPE students participated in the competition. Working under the direction of S.T.E.A.M. Teacher Lauren Wade, the students worked in teams of two or three to complete five challenges involving two robots named Dash and Dot. The students began working with their teacher in October to learn how to code the robots using the Wonder coding language. They then designed solutions to each challenge by programming the robots. Upon completing each challenge, each team was required to submit the code that they wrote, as well as a video of their code in action. Each team’s code and video were then reviewed by computer science teachers and programmers that awarded points based on completion of the challenge.
In addition to “The Sis Squad” three additional teams were admitted into the “Perfect Score Round” for getting scores of 235 points. Those teams include the “King Coders” – Adam (Landrum Middle School) and Bobby (grade 5); “Team Terabyte” – Ray (grade 5) and TJ (grade 5); and “World Wonders” – Lance (grade 3), Lucas (grade 4) and Xander (grade 5). These teams will compete in a final challenge that will then be submitted to a team of peers. The teams will review the submissions and provide feedback and commentary regarding the solutions. Completing this challenge will enter the teams into a drawing to win five Dash robots and a one-year premium curriculum subscription for OPE.
International winners will be announced March 15.
“These teams from OPE are well-prepared,” Wade said, “and will certainly excel in the next round of competition!”
