The Home School Leadership Academy (HSLA) Brick Squad Disaster Masters proved they are masters of Lego, as they captured the 2nd Bahamas First Lego Tournament.
The eight-member team comprised of Ethan Bain, Joshua Knowles, Tegan Mather, Taj-Anthony Nottage, David Sands, Mark Aaron Thompson, Dawit Thurston and Cydnay Vanderpool-Wallace held off teams from Genesis Academy, Aquinas College, Tambearly School, Palmdale Primary, T.G. Glover Primary and the Community School to win the fiercely contested challenge held recently at St. Andrew's School.
"I felt an overwhelming sense of joy to be on the winning team for a second time," said Ethan Bain, a member of HSLA's team, who won last year with Genesis Academy. "I was looking forward to participating in the competition again because it is a really good opportunity to learn more about engineering, science and mathematics all in one. The Lego League competition and core values have taught me a lot about team work. I can truly say that this experience has shown me that even though things may not look positive, as long as you think positive it will work out in a positive way."
.The teams had to solve a problem involving hurricanes on "Hurricane" territory to win the competition.
The Brick Squad Disaster Masters designed a robot to prepare to respond to a Category 5 storm that had a severe impact on The Bahamas and neighboring Florida.
HSLA co-founder, one of three coaches for the Brick Squad Disaster Masters, April Sawyer, said they designed a simple kit to promote survival skills if a lack of aid and assistance resulted from the hurricane.
Sawyer said once the students chose to work on hurricanes they spent a lot of time brainstorming and sharing their experiences with hurricanes and preparations for the storms. She said they also watched video footage and documentaries on areas of the world that had been devastated by hurricanes, particularly Hurricane Katrina. By watching footage that had taken placed in their lifetimes, they understood how vulnerable any country including a developed one like the United States can be. Sawyer said this made them passionate about finding a useful solution to the challenge.
The Leadership Academy squad will compete in the regional final that will be held in Coco Beach, Florida, in February.
The Community School took home the Core Values Project Award, Palmdale Primary and Genesis Academy took home the Technical and Robot Program Awards.
T.G. Glover Primary School's coach, Avinel Rutherford said at her school they are always looking for new learning experience, which was the reason why she and the school's science teacher Belinda Wheeler entered a team into the competition. The students who participated were participants in the Lyford Cay Foundation's FOCUS (Forward and Onward to College Upward to Success) Program.
Rutherford said the project involved tremendous sacrifices on the part of the coaches and students who worked before school started, after hours and even on Saturdays. Their challenge's theme was Nature's Fury, which involved preventing the community of Bain Town from flooding from a hurricane and saving lives in the event a flood occurred. Their robot was programmed to remove abandoned vehicles, clear drainages, build houses on stilts, and to also guide a rescue plane down a runway to move people to designated safety zones.
Torianno Burrows, T.G. Glover's deputy head boy and captain of the Robo Horrors team said he brought his prior knowledge of playing with logos into the competition. But he said for him working together as a team was the best part of the experience.
Amanda Gayle, a representative with First Lego Robotics in Florida was present at the competition time to offer support to organizers. She was excited to see that the event has grown from last year.
"I am impressed to see higher scores, [and] better performances. We are hoping that The Bahamas team does very well in the regional finals," said Gayle. "They'll have to keep practicing and putting the robot in their hands every opportunity they get."
Tournament organizer Laurena Finlayson was pleased with the growth.
"Last year, we had four teams (three schools) and this year we had eight teams (eight schools). The judges were also pleased with growth, especially noting that we had the commitment from more government schools. This season we hope that other schools will see the value in this tournament and understand the value it brings to the students."
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