This December, nine teams from Penfield Central School District competed in the FIRST Lego League (FLL) Robotics Qualifier Competition. Harris Hill’s The Diggity Blasters and Cobbles-Bay Trail’s Legends of LEGOS took two of the three top spots and earned an invitation to the regional competition in Buffalo this February.

Beginning in September, Penfield’s teams practiced two to three times a week at Bay Trail to prepare for the competition. Teams were challenged to design, build, and program a robot out of LEGOS and practice operating that robot on a “mission field” to accomplish challenges. They were also tasked with researching a problem related to this year's "unearthed" theme, developing a solution, and designing a presentation to creatively share their solution. This required highly collaborative teamwork and demonstrating FLL Core Values to be successful at the competition.  

Among the 16 teams competing, Penfield’s team earned numerous awards and accolades.

Coached by Whitney Leinen and Andrea Randt, the Diggity Blasters team included Vincent Randt, Maxwell Leinen, Lukas Dylag, Bryce Petronis, Brian Tran, and Preston Buckner. They were named the Overall Championship Trophy Winner and earned a fourth-place finish in the Robot Challenge.

Coached by Adam Sweeney and Ryan Burst, Legends of Lego included Emmet Sweeney, Oliver Burst, Henry Sherman, Sawyer Shi, Finley Messenger, and Isabella Averiro. They earned first place in Robot Design and third place in the Robot Challenge.

Earning the fourth-place spot in the Robot Competition was Super Techasaurus (Cobbles and Bay Trail). Coached by James Sytsma and Scott Allocco, this team included Henry Sytsma, Ayden Allocco, Britton Pincus, Ethan Taylor, Rowan Peebles, Oscar Turgeon, and Joshua Crownmiller.

Rolling Sparks (Harris Hill) was named the Core Values Top Award Winner and earned fifth place in the Robot Competition. Coached by Leann Lewis and Bob Wilkinson, Rolling Sparks included students Leo Lewis, Zoe Wilkinson, Noah Kane, Connor Wolak, Hudson Guard, Joseph Maheu, and Hannah Lutz.

The Lightning Bots (Bay Trail) were coached by Coach David Brugger and Mark Walluk, and included Marshall Brugger, Corbin Walluk, Brennan Vogel, Rockwell Hutchins, Nora Carroll-Nellenback, Walter Strassburg, and Harrison Stoffel. The Lightning Bots were named the Breakthrough Award Trophy Winner and took third place in the Robot Challenge.

Eat Sleep LEGO (Indian Landing and Harris Hill) was coached by Jeremy Topolski, Adam Towlsey, Shawn Pfister, and Arnaud Colaitis. Students Liam Towsley, Mael Colaitis, Madelyne Pfister, Zakhar Berezin, Liam Butler, Ian Butler, and Oliver Perez earned a sixth place finish in the Robot Challenge.

Ancient Axolotl Sea Dragons (Scribner and Bay Trail) earned seventh place in the Robot Challenge.  Williem Fitzgerald, Ryan Swan, Christopher Ciesla, Emma Guistina, Daniel Chen, Nolan Felts, and Aarav Kumar were coached by Jennifer Swan and Andy Fitzgerald.

Taking eighth place in the Robot Challenge was Team 5M-2 (Indian Landing), coached by Sam Miller and Coach Yilmaz Akkilich. Student teammates included Lawerence Miller, Umit Baran Akkilic, Lucy Peterson, Henry Bayer, and Michael Kremens.

Team Un-Kragled (Scribner) included Margot Resch, Elliot Harding, Rylyn Davis, Dominic George, Ryan Jones, Derek Chen, and Adam Acton and were coached by Andrew Harding and Coach Dan Resch.