PEORIA COUNTY, Ill. – Two Peoria-area robotics teams are back from the world championships in Houston, Texas, with one team bringing home some hardware.
After a successful season, the Energy Wizards and the Lightning Bots qualified as the only two teams representing Illinois in the FIRST Lego League Challenge world championships.
FIRST, or For Inspiration Recognition of Science and Technology, is a nonprofit organization that encourages kids to pursue careers in STEM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
The global STEM program announces a new real-world problem at the beginning of each competition season that becomes the focus of team research. This year’s theme was ocean exploration.
Teams that participated in the FIRST Lego League Challenge worked all year to perfect an autonomous robot and innovation project to present at tournaments. Only about 160 teams made it to this year’s world championships.
The Energy Wizards, a team of seven that hail from Dunlap Middle School, made the cut and brought home a finalist trophy in the innovation category.
Team member Srikar Chirumamila told 25 News, “We got champion awards at all stages of the competition, from qualifiers, sections, at states we got second place, and now as finalists. It feels like our hard work did actually pay off.”
The young team from Dunlap found a solution to collect samples from the ocean floor without pausing exploration efforts. They created an underwater sample line that travels to and from a remotely operated vehicle that collects biological and geological samples.
“The USL will go up and down the tether to get the samples and bring them back up. We would save roughly half a million dollars per year,” team member Reyarsh Dhuppad said.
The Energy Wizards also invented a double-staged ROV, which includes a stabilizer stationed 100 meters above the ROV on the ocean floor. The stabilizer would limit the effects of ocean currents on the data collection process.
The Dunlap team didn’t invent the solution to ocean exploration efficiency on the spot. Instead, they talked with multiple ocean experts throughout the season to get their feedback on possible solutions.
Energy Wizards team member Meenakshi Thopalli believes the fact-driven solution, attributed to real-life experts, resonated with the judges.
“[The ocean experts] gave us a lot of information that helped us bring our innovation project where it is today. They really helped us get a deeper understanding about the ocean,” said Thopalli.
The team even filed for a patent on their innovation.
Even as finalists, the team knows there is room for improvement. Their next plan is to use their experience from the world championship to bring home first place next year.
“Mainly, it was the experience of going there and learning what other teams thought of the missions and how they solved this year’s problem,” team member Sanay Sumesh said.
In the autonomous robot category, the Energy Wizards placed 30th, and The Lightning Bots placed 31st, respectively.
The Energy Wizards also dedicate their time to working with students with disabilities. The team has a GoFundMe to raise money and buy Lego sets to ignite interest in creative construction with students receiving special education services.
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