All-girls robotics team wins competition
Hartland TownLIVING STON ship’s Pink Eagles captured a top prize at the Wonder League Robotics Competition.
Coach Frank Tappen said the team, comprising female students from Ore Creek Middle School, is “ecstatic” about its win.
“Our daughter and her friends first joined Wonder League thinking it would be a fun and engaging way to learn more about robotics, but what they discovered was so much more than that,” Tappen said. “While solving this year’s missions, the girls learned invaluable, lifelong skills about time management, group collaboration and contributing to their community.
“By working closely as a team, they developed some pretty creative solutions. What started out as a robotics project for a small group of girls grew into a remarkable story of learning and perseverance that excited our entire community,” he added.
Wonder Workshop, creators of Dash & Dot robots that teach students creative problem solving, coding and robotics, announced the winners of the competition on Tuesday.
More than 5,300 teams from 52 countries participated in the competition.
The Pink Eagles won the grand prize for the 9-to-12 age group and team XPLODE from Bangalore, India, won the grand prize for the 6-to-8 age group.
The grand-prize-winning teams each received a $5,000 grant for science, technology, engineering and math-related supplies and a Dash robot for every member of the team.
The competition began in October with a finalist round in January. The teams competed to rescue animal habitats on Bear Byte Island by completing coding lessons and challenges.
Tappen said the Pink Eagles formed three years ago and has had great success this year, placing second in a First Lego League robotics contest. On Saturday, the team competes in Robofest in Canton, Mich.
“They are having a banner year,” he said.