RICHLAND, Wash. – The Intelligent Mavericks, a robotics team from the Richland School District, ranked in the top five out of more than 60,000 teams worldwide and earned the Champion’s Finalist Award at the FIRST LEGO League World Festival.
The team, comprised of students from Lewis and Clark Elementary, Libby Middle School and Enterprise Middle School, was the only U.S. team to receive this recognition. This marks the first time a team from Washington has reached this level in the competition.
The team included eighth graders Lucy Cramer, Aditri Prasad, and Samviti Prasad from Enterprise Middle School; Carter House and Bianca Zink from Libby Middle School; Scott Kreutz from Three Rivers HomeLink; and fifth grader Isaac Cramer from Lewis & Clark Elementary.
During the competition, the Intelligent Mavericks faced a challenge when a motor failure caused their robot to spin in circles, scoring just 100 points in their first match. However, they persevered by borrowing a motor from a team from Spain and reprogramming their robot. They achieved 535 points in their final match, just 10 points shy of a perfect score.
For their innovation project, the team tackled biofouling on underwater sensors, which affects ocean data accuracy. They collaborated with scientists and engineers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, testing their ideas in real saltwater conditions and presenting their findings to the judges.
