Township Robotics Teams Wins Awards and Advances in Contest

Three teams from a local robotics club won awards recently and advanced to the New Jersey First LEGO League State Championship, which will be held this Saturday in Mount Olive.

The following teams from the Livingston Robotics Club (LRC) advanced and will compete: Exit 5 Robotics, Supreme Machine and Alpha Force Reloaded, according to a press release from the robotics club.

The competition on Saturday is part of the First LEGO League, an international robotics contest geared for kids ages nine to 14, according to LRC. Kids who participate are required to put together and program a LEGO Mindstorm robot to undertake different tasks within a set time limit.

Qualifiers have been held on November 19 and December 3 for Saturday's competition.

In the latter qualifying event, LRC's rookie team, Power Legends, also won the Judges' Awards, which is given to the team with the "most potential," according to LRC.

“One of the judges after the awards ceremony said to me, ‘You should be very proud of these boys, and how far they came in so little time,'" said co-coach Maureen Chase in a statement. “She said, ‘Yours is the team we’ll be watching in the future!’ We are immensely proud of the boys, their stamina to the very end, and overwhelming enthusiasm despite the fact that they were competing mostly against older children, many in middle school, and far more experienced. They never even noticed potential obstacles because they just had a good time!”

This Saturday's competition will be held all day at Mount Olive High School in Flanders, according to the LRC.

For more information, visit the LRC website at www.livingstonrobotics.org.