Justin joined a Lego Robotics team this year with his cousin Ryan and some other kids from his school. His team, MIB 835 (Molecules In Black) took 10th place out of 40 teams in the competition and won the Team Spirit award in the state competition. The goal was to have their robot complete all 9 missions in under two and a half minutes.

The team had 3 runs at the board. The first run they scored under 100 points. The next run (Ryan’s run) they scored 170 out of a possible 400 points. This score was good enough to allow a programming/strategy change, using ideas we picked up from others at the competition. Justin and Tyler anchored the game, with Ryan ready to tag in. Things did not start off perfectly (they karate chop arm freed the stuck nano-tip, but it re-attached, so they had to run that program, costing them valuable time). After that, things went pretty well, but two other missions missed their mark, by 1/2 an inch or less on each. Ryan tagged in to line up a mission he specialized in, and they managed just under 200 points for the round. With a little luck, they would have jumped up several more spots in the competition.
Besides the robot portion, the team had two presentations in front of judges. Justin was calm and did a good job answer questions about the robot, the attachments, and nano technology.