Maggie Walker’s Robotics team, the Mech Tech Dragons, held their annual FIRST Lego League Tournament (FLL) on November 11th. The tournament consisted of 23 teams from middle schools across the Greater Richmond area. All of these teams were invited to participate in the competition to showcase their hard work and innovation through robots. “This is the biggest attendance we have had since Covid, so it’s nice to see everyone involved,” explained Pit Admin Sania Jain (’24). 

The FIRST Lego League Tournament is a competition with the goal to expose students to robotics while learning about the FIRST core values–discovery, innovations impact, inclusion, teamwork, and fun. This year, the project was about how STEM can be used to make art more accessible, so teams were tasked to research the problem and find a solution for it. In addition to their research project, teams also built a robot to complete various tasks, or “missions” on the game field. To prepare for the competition, teams built their robots, built a game field to practice, and designed and programmed their robots to complete the various missions. And based on their robot’s performance and solutions to the research project, teams are able to win awards. 

The Mech Tech Dragons spent the last few months preparing for the event. The event positions included Referees, Field Managers and Resetters, and Fun Room Managers. Referee Rahmat Okegbenro (’25) found the experience fun and was happy to be “helping encourage the kids in STEM.” Similarly, Aditya Badhrayan (‘25), a Field Admin, said, “It’s really inspiring to see all these kids put so much effort into their robots for this initiative.” Overall, from setting up a game field to organizing practice and fun rooms for the participants, FLL was an event that involved everyone and supported STEM learning for all.