Lego League Competition 2011

Every fall has been "Lego Season" around the McMullin household, at least for the past four years.

The kids work for two months building and programming a robot to do certain tasks on a competition table. They are also required to do a research project on a topic, which changes every year. Finally, after hours of work, and weeks of meetings, they compete at a regional competition against hundreds of other kids.

Here is this years team...with some friendly chickens.


The topic this year was Food Safety. The boys' team decided to research making eggs salmonella free by designing better chicken coops. (They found that free range hens, in less cramped conditions, laid healthier eggs.) After visiting a commercial egg farm, that was organic and free range, they made up a skit to show the judges their findings. Here the boys are on their fieldtrip, helping bring in eggs from 400 chickens.

Below, Mattias gets a prop ready for their skit, as they wait to be allowed in the judges room on the day of the regional competition.

The team has written a skit with talking chickens, who demand better living conditions. An elite task force of Commando Chickens eventually rescue them. Thus, all the chicken head gear.

Once they preform for the judges, they answer questions about their research data, and how it has impacted their community. Earlier in the fall, we had toured a chicken farm, and the boys were excited to tell the judges all about it.

The next interview session was in a room with judges that ask about their robot's design, and the program code they wrote. They have to answer questions about sensors and gears they chose to use, and how why they chose to design the robot like they did.

The last interview is a less stressful one. It is the "Teamwork" portion of the competition. The judges assign a project, and then judge the team on how well they work together. (Listening to everybody's suggestions, complementing each other, etc.)

The team is gathered around a pile of dry spaghetti and marshmallows, building a structure that will hold a beach ball.

After a lunch break, the teams line for the grand entry, with representives carrying their team banner. We had 33 teams at our regional tournament.

After the entry, the afternoon is full of the robot table-game competitions. With music blasting, and a disco ball spinning, the gym is transformed into a dramatic setting to watch each teams robot show what it can do. There are 4 big screen TV's placed around the gymn so everybody has a good view of the action happening on the table.

After a rough start (our robot broke in half on it's first run), the team rallied, and moved into an amazing third place.

Here is everyone, except Mattias, and the robot. They are waiting for their last chance to score points. (Your robot gets three runs.)

At the end of a very long day, there are closing ceremonies where the awards are given out. Our team won the top programming award. They also finished sixth overall, qualifying them to move on to the state competition.


Unfortunately, State is scheduled to be on a Sunday this year... so the team is going to Milwaukee in December without the McMullins. It was a good season though, as we are excited to see how the rest of the team does next month.