Strong robotics season for the Menlo Park Narleaotters Lego League
The Menlo Park Narleaotters FIRST Lego League (FLL) robotics team, comprised of 4th-6th grade students from Menlo Park’s La Entrada Middle School, Synapse School, Menlo School, St. Raymond School, and Hillview Middle School, finished the season strong when competing at the global Florida Sunshine Invitational (FSI) over summer. FSI is a global competition with 50 teams from around the world, held at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. After receiving the 2nd Place Champion’s Award at the Northern California Peninsula District Championship competition, the team was nominated to attend FSI.
At the Northern California Qualifier competition at Mountain View High School, the team earned the Champion’s Award, the highest award at the competition, “celebrating a team that embodies the FIRST ® LEGO® League Challenge experience, by fully embracing our Core Values while achieving excellence and innovation in Robot Performance, Robot Design and the Innovation Project.”
This year’s theme “Masterpiece” challenged students to develop an innovative solution to an art-related problem. The students chose to research how they could make art more accessible to all, starting with the visually impaired. They began their initial research by meeting with Dr. Stan Yarnell from the Blind Posse, a local advocacy group working on art access for all, as well as Diane Holaday at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University to learn more about accessible features of the museum and share some initial ideas.
Based on their research, they created a solution called “Art Sensify”, a multi-sensory experience to help blind people experience art. They coded an Android app which would detect Bluetooth beacons placed in the museum to automatically start audio descriptions of the exhibit and guide the user to touchable tactile replicas.
The students designed handheld replicas of exhibits from the Cantor Arts Center using Tinkercad and 3D printing, as well as laser cutting replicas of paintings so that visually impaired users can feel grooves to help them visualize the lines of the paintings. The judges at the competition stated: “We loved the smart approach to a real-world issue.”
At the Florida Sunshine Invitational, the students received the 3rd Place Innovation Project Award for the Art Sensify project on the global stage, with the Invitational judges stating: “You have the ability to change the world of art!”
In addition, the students strive to give back to the community to share their passion for Lego Robotics with younger children, demonstrating FIRST’s Core Values. Team members volunteer at the Redwood City Downtown Library with the LEGO Robotics League on Sundays @12:30PM, helping younger students and peers learn more about coding and designing Lego-based robots. They have helped create robots to draw spin art designs, dance to music, and complete daily challenges.
If you may be interested in being a local sponsor for these students during the upcoming season or have opportunities where they can help with K-5 robotics outreach, please reach out narleaotters@gmail.com.
