Sharks and Robots
With over 14,000 teams worldwide and over 300 teams in Florida alone, the Hammerhead team of Lake County is taking quite the “bite” out of the competition.
Written by Blair Townley; Photos by Anthony Rao
“HAMMERHEADS, HAMMERHEADS,” the exuberant crowd cheers.
It may feel like you just entered a sports game in progress but it is instead a First Lego League competition in full gear with Lake County’s own Hammerheads robotics team.
The Hammerheads, consisting of children and teens ages 9-15, are the local chapter of the world-renowned robotics league formed to encourage children and teens toward pursuing careers in the science and technology fields.
The team has a lot to be encouraged about after returning home from April’s FLL Worlds Festival in Georgia, their first appearance, with trophies in hand.
“This was our first year [at the world’s competition] and it was unbelievable. They did very well,” says Robert White, one of the Hammerheads’ coaches and father to team member Ashley White.
Transportation and Drunk Driving
To enter competitions, First Lego League teams must have a robot to operate a pre-approved course as well as a research project with a solution to a common problem in the community.
The Hammerheads attained a perfect course run of their robot during April’s competition, using touch sensors to maneuver the competition’s course.
“The robot performs missions on the map [provided by competition sponsors] like knocking one piece over to release a trap, pick up pieces, bumping over certain pieces. You get points for certain missions,” says 14-year-old Parker Verkaik, a member of the Hammerheads.
“The most points you can get in one run is 400 and we achieved that [at the competition],” adds 12-year-old Braden Verkaik.
Teams have to get their robots to complete these missions within a two-minute and 30 second time limit. The Hammerheads were able to do this with their robot by using touch sensors created on their computer and then programmed into their robot.
“We use touch sensors on each mission to start the robot and you’ll have the programming running so you don’t have to scroll through all the missions to pick which one to run,” teammate Ashley White, 13, says.
“You just touch the robot and it will go to the next mission. You tell the programming how much power you want to do; how many rotations and if you want it to go forward, backwards, straight, turn left or right.”
“It [The robot] uses hours of programming where the kids were going back and forth from the computer to the course and back. Every little thing is tweaked like how many rotations the wheel goes,” says Teresa Welke, parent of team member Alex Welke.
Along with the robot run, the team presented an invention they made to help end a regular problem in their community. The problem in the Eustis/Umatilla area – drunk driving.
“Every minute there is an injury [from a car accident] and every 10 fatal car crashes are from drunk drivers,” team member 10-year-old Gracie Darlington says.
“One of the big problems in our community is drunk driving so we thought we would find a way to help prevent deaths,” states nine-year-old Garrett Verkaik, another Hammerhead member.
Their solution is a wheel that can read a person’s blood alcohol level with touch sensors on the steer wheel as well as a device to swipe a driver’s license that takes a picture and matches it to the license picture.
The team discussed their steer wheel invention to judges with the help of a five-minute DVD presentation, made as a mock-“Andy Griffith Show” episode complete with costumes and memorable “Griffith” characters.
“They decided to do a skit and make it exciting instead of boringly giving facts,” says Vicki Verkaik, a coach for the Hammerheads and mother to Parker, Garrett and Braden.
Their hard work for the project paid off as they came home with a second place trophy for research along with a fourth place positioning with the Champion’s Award.
Reward More Than a Trophy
The awards however is nothing compared to gaining a stronger sense of science and technology for the team members.
“‘This is the way to get our kids to love science.’ You learn so much, from presentation skills to judging under pressure to science and technology of computers,” says Mary Jane White, mother to Ashley.
“It’s neat also that it can be family-oriented as all these kids have grown up with this program [since the team started six years ago with their older siblings].”
The team has overcome the fear of public speaking, a common fear in youth, while also learning to work together for programming their robot and researching their steer wheel project.
Their team spirit is no more evident than during the competitions, where team members color coordinated their T-shirts and hair with the Hammerheads’ signature hot pink color.
“Whether they were going out on the competition field for the robot or going into the judging area for the project, you never really saw them nervous. I kept seeing that throughout [the competitions] and they were never intimidated but able to go out and enjoy the competition,” Teresa Welke says.
With the competition came also the opportunity to make new friends with teams from other countries to competing on the floor of the Georgia Dome to having fun at the closing festival for competitors at Atlanta’s Centennial Park.
“We worked hard and got to have fun,” says 15-year-old Alex Welke, a Hammerhead teammate.
As the Hammerheads look toward what next year’s project will bring, the theme being Body Forward for technology in medicine, the team is already “hungry” to see what their creative brains will create next.
“It’s very hard to tell someone about the First Lego League; it’s easier to be able to observe it as they get a much better picture of what it encompasses,” Vicki Verkaik says.
“We invited whoever to come as it’s so exciting to just see an event.”
For more information on the league, visit firstlegoleague.org.
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