JERICHO, NY(TIP): The RoboFalcons, a group of young tech enthusiast boys from Jericho Middle School, have been working hard again in preparation for the First Lego League (FLL) Championships. The six-man crew has been working tirelessly outside of school hours to design and create robots. “It’s not just about robotics. It’s a great program for kids to learn how to construct projects while teaching them to work as a team together,” per Rohit Bhatia, head coach of the RoboFalcons and father of one of the team’s members. The team, now in its fourth year, was assembled by Rohit Bhatia, a Jericho resident with a desire to expose bright young minds to the science behind robotics and the associated technology. The group is not an officially recognized club in the middle school, yet the children within it are eager to devote their time to meeting and working together to achieve a common goal.

This year, Rohit also put together another Junior FLL rookie team – TechnoQueens, with 6 girls (including his daughter) from Jericho Elementary schools.   These young and motivated girls have so much fun learning together and working on this year’s project Aqua Adventure. They’re all so motivated and so excited to get to work. “They understand that it’s not mandatory and truly appreciate the time they put in. What we’re doing is learning and having fun and making friends throughout the process.”

These driven young students had their sights  set on winning their FLL Championships and Jr FLL Expos, an annual international program targeted at middle school and elementary school students, in which registered teams must create robots within the parameters of the mission set forth by the league. The program is intended to challenge participants to discover solutions to real-world problems through the use of math, science and technology.

At the back of Long Island FIRST events held on March 3rd ( Jr FLL Expo, Mineola) and March 4th (SBPLI Long Island FLL Championship, Longwood)  both the  teams have further progressed to World Competitions in their respective leagues.

Jr FLL Girls Team, ‘TechnoQueens’, presented and explained their project and model made out of Legos – ‘VILL-AQUATEC’- about bringing clean water  through various technologies to remote villages around world. They impressed the judges with their presentations and excitement; and won the ‘Explosive Ideas Award’.  They would now be presenting the same in World Expo in Detroit from April 26th-28th. They would join the other 60 out of 14,000+ teams globally in Jr World Expo.

The boys FLL team, ‘RoboFalcons’, did very well in all aspects of Robot Score, technical judging and team values. Most importantly, they got an award on their Project Solution…In addition to winning the Championship award for ‘Innovative Solution, the team was also presented with opportunity to present their innovative solution to FIRST ‘Global Innovation Award’ forum which selects the world-wide winners.

Boys built the prototype with thermal sensor with Raspberry Pi and created a mobile app (using MIT Scratch programming)- and connected the phone via Bluetooth socket to Raspberry Pi. They were able to demonstrate the change in values (depicting contamination) and display it instantly on the mobile app. Quite an accomplishment- and they did this all by hands on learning themselves. They also designed a 3D printer-based sphere model of their Aqua Bot !

They now advance to be part of FLL Razorback Championship to be held at University of Arkansas from May 17-20th – and would join other 72 teams from other parts of USA and other 19 countries from around the world.

Also, to note that the Fund-raising campaign the kids’ have been running with WaterAid has raised about $2700  and kids are continuing to spread awareness- aimed to get clean water to Llano Verde School, Nicaragua. They are really proud of it and have received great kudos from WaterAid team for the same!