North Canton's (First) FIRST LEGO Leagues Gear Up for Weekend Competition

They've built their robots, done their research and mastered their presentations, and now the North Canton students in the district's first FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO teams are ready to compete.

They'll go head to head with their classmates Saturday and show what they've learned this year.

The district has six FIRST LEGO Leagues and two Junior LEGO Leagues, and North Canton Patch joined in on a practice with members of one the FIRST LEGO League teams. Sixth and seventh graders Jason Rojas, Clayton Bunnell, James Nixon and Mac Shelton were gearing up for a weekend competition. (Noah Yngling was absent.)

"The idea is they give us a theme, and we have to come up with a problem within that theme and then solve it," said Kristina Bunnell, coach and parent volunteer.

"It's not so much about the solution as it is how they came to the solution."

The FLL chose the theme of "Senior Solutions" this year, and teams across the country met with senior citizens to learn about the problems they face. 

This North Canton team (Red Stone Inc.) met with two senior citizens and, through talking with them about their everyday challenges, discovered that both suffered from different types of arthritis and often found it difficult to grip items.

They put themselves in the seniors' places and did experiments such as taping their fingers together to simulate arthritis. Then set off to figure out a way to solve that problem, using their research from the Arthritis Foundation.

"We decided to create a solution for people with arthritic hands to open things," Rojas said. "We thought it we could make the lid easier to grip for sore hands, people wouldn't have to use a whole bunch of gadgets."

Their solution? Change the shape of the lid to a large triangle so there's more area to grip.

One part of the tournament is a presentation about the group's solution; another is a challenge with a robot the team built from a LEGO NXT. The robot must perform tasks on a gameboard. Those tasks mimic what a senior citizen might do in his everyday life, such as cooking, gardening and choosing medication bottles.

First LEGO League is new to North Canton schools. The six FLL Leagues and two Junior LEGO Leagues are a product of the new North Canton STEM Alliance. Community members in the alliance are dedicated to advancing science, technology, engineering and math in North Canton City Schools.

Hoover High teacher Todd Alkire worked to get the word out about the alliance at the beginning of the year and said one of the goals was to start FIRST LEGO Leagues.

"We want to increase the number of students taking and participating in STEM programs here at the middle school and at the high school," Alkire said in February. "And the sooner we start the students on that path, the better off we're going to be." 

The next competition is a regional competition in January in Akron.