Scott youth participate in national Lego competition Published Dec. 7, 2011 By Staff Sgt. Stephenie Wade 375th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- What do radio frequencies, Legos and meat have in common? The First Lego League competition. A team of six Scott Air Force Base children, "Da Ex Bots," participated in the 2011 St. Louis regional First Lego League competition Dec. 4 at Florissant Valley Community College in Ferguson, Mo. The team earned fourth place. "FLL encourages children to design, construct, and program their own intelligent inventions," said Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Lego Group owner and deputy chairman. "This allows them not only to understand technology, but to become masters of it." The team competed against 39 others for honors as the best in the St Louis area and a chance to attend the world competition in April 2012. According the First Lego League website, FLL is a robotics program for ages 9-16 designed to get children excited about science and technology, and teach them valuable employment and life skills. Team coach, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Gulick, said, "It is easy to start a Lego League Team. The 'First' website has the instructions for starting a team for anyone interested. There are experienced coaches who are willing to mentor." Gulick works at United States Transportation Command. Teams are composed of up to 10 children with at least one adult coach. The Scott team's name, "Da Ex Bots," means do all with excellence. Team members include Ben Harrison, 12, Bryce Whistler, 13, Jacob Gulick, 9, Jenna Gulick, 11, Julie Koharik 11, and Eddie Koharik, 14. In addition to Jeffrey Gulick, Edward Koharik, USTRANSCOM, is also a coach. This is the second year of participation for the Koharik family and third for the Gulick's. "Each year, the competition has a theme allowing the children learn about a topic relating to science, technology, engineering or mathematics," said Jeffrey Gulick. "This years' overall theme was food safety. "Each team will participate in three categories relating to the theme," he said. Teams earn points in three categories: technical, core value and presentation. The technical portion requires teams to build a robot from Legos and a model. The robot has to accomplish three missions set by the judges to earn as many points as possible. One of the missions according to Ben Harrison is they will have to use the robot to pick up products and transport them to a destination while staying in the black and white lines the robot's sensor must use as a guide. "During the judging, the team will describe the robot, how they came to the design, the attachments they will use to accomplish the missions, use of sensors and programs," said, Jeanette Gulick. The team also has to participate in a familiar category already instilled in military families--core values. The FLL core values serve as cornerstones of the program and participants learn friendly competition and mutual gain aren't separate goals. Helping one another is the foundation of teamwork. "In the core value portion, we have to demonstrate what our team has learned so far while participating in the competition and building our model," said Eddie Koharik. The presentation portion consists of a research project the team had to create. "We voted on meat safety during transportation as our research project," said Bryce Whistler. Marlin Dotson from the base commissary assisted the team's research project by providing a meat department and delivery truck tour. The team's project includes a Lego model of the commissary's meat department and skit demonstrating the importance of meat transportation. They performed in the Scott commissary for customers Nov. 30 while practicing for regional competition. "We learned that some transporting truck drivers have been turning off their refrigerators to save money," said Jacob Gulick. "In result, the meat would rise to 60 degrees and contaminate all the products in the truck. We watched a video. It was gross to see the truck bed." For some, the FLL program was a great idea. "Our kids have learned quite a bit about problem-solving, programming, research, teamwork, leadership community service and, of course, food safety," said Edward Koharik. "Needless to say, I think this program is outstanding." With over 20,000 teams in over 61 countries, FLL is constantly expanding. For more information or to volunteer visit http://firstlegoleague.org.