By Caroline Shin
Special to DNAinfo
HELL'S KITCHEN — Middle schoolers from the Upper East Side's Dalton School were elated to take home the first place trophy Sunday for a robotics tournament at the Javits Center — even if it was made out of yellow LEGOs.
The school's middle school robotics teams bested 80 others in both the robot performance and robot design categories at the 11th annual New York City FIRST Celebration's LEGO League Championship.
"I feel good. It was a good reward for our hard work. And that's a product of our kids really learning," said Robert Quatrone, director of the robotics program at Dalton.
The schools had been picked for the competition from more than 200 applicants from around the city.
It was the Dalton's second year in the competition, and they credited their win to the endless hours students spent practicing at the school, with some students coming in every day in the weeks leading up to Sunday's event.
Quatrone said the team will celebrate their win with cake or some other sweet treats.
The FIRST non-profit organization, created by Segway inventor Dean Kamen to inspire youth to pursue studies in science and technology, also hosted robotics competitions for elementary and high school students during the three-day event.
"It’s been amazing," said Pat Daly, New York City regional director. "The program really teaches the kids how to interact and it simulates real life situations."
This year’s Lego championship, entitled the Body Forward Challenge, focused on exploring biomedical engineering solutions to bodily injuries from bone repair to nerve mapping.
Teams spent one and a half months making robots out of LEGOs and other parts before sending them in at the end of February.
Competitors were reconnected with their robots on Sunday, where they had to effectively program their robots to complete the given tasks during timed rounds. Having the robot follow a track and open a door would earn the team 20 points, for example. Meanwhile, straying out of bounds would deduct 5 points.
The execution was harder than it looked, throwing some teams for a loop on Sunday, including the team from P.S. 126 in Chinatown.
"The wheels turned but it [the robot] went out of place," said team member Alexandria Guo, 12, whose team placed fifth in robotic design.
P.S. 126 coach Hau-Yu Chu, whose team slipped from its third-place spot in 2009, said she plans to redouble her efforts next year to ensure the team returns to their former stature.
"We're very happy that we won the award. But I think we could do better," Chu added.
Ajay Matthew, a software programmer at a financial services company, was one of 48 volunteer judges, strolling through the teams’ pits on the convention floor.
"It’s imaginative," said Matthew of the technological offering, particularly impressed with the students’ proposed use of nanobots inside bodies. "Thinking outside the box, it’s difficult for adults to do. Kids are better at it."
Among some of these imaginative projects were a walking cane that alerts the blind user when it approaches the yellow line of the subway platform, and a GPS-studded pacemaker that would allow ambulances to locate the person during a heart attack.
Other Manhattan schools that took home awards included P.S. 28, for research, Manhattan East School for Academics and Art, for teamwork, East Harlem Tutorial, for robot design, I.S. 289, for teamwork, and P.S. 126 for robot design.
