Immaculate Conception students take part in Lego robotics competition

Students at Immaculate Conception School in Jackson participated in the FIRST Lego League state championship Dec. 8 in St. Louis.

The FIRST Lego League is a robotics competition that puts robots built from Lego Mindstorm kits through a themed obstacle course, a news release from Immaculate Conception said.

Teams consisting of fourth through eighth graders design, build and program the devices.

In addition, there is a project component to the competition. This year's theme was "Nature's Fury." The project challenged teams to come up with inventions to address the problems surrounding natural disasters, the release said.

Immaculate Conception was one of three schools that advanced from the qualifying tournament in November in Cape Girardeau. At that event, they were the overall winner based on their combined performance in robotics and the project. In the state competition, they won first place in Strategy and Innovation. The award is given by a panel of judges for having the best project idea and presentation, according to the release.

Immaculate Conception's idea was a volcanic ash filtration system that ran on solar panels. To investigate this idea, team members interviewed local professionals and researched the concepts to determine details such as the size and power rating of the solar panels, the overall costs of the system, and even some of the tax rebates that could be applied for.

The team from Immaculate Conception includes Megan Engelen, Parker Nugent, Benton Keran, Megan Jansen, Allison Bray, Steven Peters, Hayden Morrill and Matt Gibbs. Coaches are Renee Deken and Laura Bray, both of whom teach at Immaculate Conception, the release said.

"This program is great. It allows students to apply what they know about math and science to the real world," Deken said.

"The kids had the opportunity to come up with an idea, research and then present the idea to a panel," Bray said. "Afterwards, the kids answered impromptu questions about their idea. These are all exercises that they will have to perform in high school, college and in their careers."

Megan Jansen, an eighth-grader said, "We are a team. No matter how many differences we all have, we all came together to come up with our innovative solution."

"I just like building stuff," said Steven Peters, a seventh-grader on the team. Building a solar powered air filtration system out of Legos was fun, but building with friends was twice as fun."