Robotics team attends world championship

Mike Moore
Posted 5/5/17

Local creative minds had the chance to show off their hard work on the world stage in April, as the Sublette County 4-H Cowboy Joes Robotics Team ventured, for the first time in program history, to the First Lego League World Championships at the George B

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Robotics team attends world championship

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HOUSTON – Local creative minds had the chance to show off their hard work on the world stage in April, as the Sublette County 4-H Cowboy Joes Robotics Team ventured, for the first time in program history, to the First Lego League World Championships at the George Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. The team was awarded a bid to attend after placing in the top tier at the First Lego League (FLL) Wyoming Championships in Casper in early December.

The world competition ran from April 19-22, where the team, consisting of nine students in fourth to eighth grades from Pinedale Elementary and Pinedale Middle schools met twice a week from September to the start of December at the Sublette County 4-H office to build and test their robot. Sandra McLoughlin and Andy Adkins coached this year’s team.

This year’s theme was “Animal Allies,” where teams were tasked with improving on how animals and humans learn from and interact with one another.

The Cowboy Joes built “Mr. Fishy,” which is an underwater robot that uses certain musical sounds and blinking lights to help attract and move trapped fish in irrigation channels when water levels drop in the fall months.

The group used a plastic tackle box for the main body of the robot, with plastic coat hangers attached beneath with small motors to drive the robot. Lights and speakers to play music were then attached, and students moved to a private pond to test it out once the prototype was ready to roll. After learning the robot indeed worked, the team knew they had a solid, functional project to present.

The team learned about how underwater robots work from John Linn of Tip Top Search and Rescue, who gave the team a demonstration at the Pinedale Aquatics Center.

“John gave suggestions to make it work and did a fantastic job with the kids,” coach McLoughlin said.

The team later went out to the Daniel Fish Hatchery to meet with professionals to learn about safe ways to work with fish. In addition, teams built and programmed an autonomous robot using a LEGO MINDSTORMS kit to participate in a set of missions on a playing field.

At the world championships, only an overall grand champion is selected from the 110 teams from 39 countries and 28 states in attendance. This year’s grand champion award went to a team out of the country of Jordan.

McLoughlin says the event was a great way for students to meet with their peers from around the world.

“Our neighbor booths were from Australia, Peru and Panama,” McLoughlin said. “They met so many kids.”

In addition, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead happened to be in the area and rearranged his flight so he could stop by the George Brown Convention Center to watch the team in action and learn more about their project through demonstrations by members of the Cowboy Joes.

This was the ninth consecutive year the Cowboy Joes have been around, and the team looks forward to taking on a new challenge next year, when they will focus on a theme revolving around hydrodynamics.