After defeating nine challengers in the River City Qualifier in January, the Bovina Brainiacs Robotics team advanced to the state
competition where they won the Mississippi FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League Championship.

“This is the first team in Vicksburg to win the Mississippi FLL Championship and the first Vicksburg FLL team to represent Mississippi at the FLL World Championship,” Bovina Elementary STEM teacher Marion Margaret Hearn said.

FLL is a project-based, hands-on program that exposes students to engineering and coding in an environment that provides students the opportunity to be innovative and collaborate to solve problems and a robotics challenge based on a different theme each year.

This year’s theme is “Masterpiece,” Hearn said, adding it is designed for students to use critical thinking and innovation to entertain.

For their innovation project, the Brainiacs decided to create a game, which included building a robot and writing a code for the robot to complete various missions for points.

“The students also wrote rules, designed a board, (game) pieces, and a box for the game,” Hearn said. “And they programmed 15 different missions, which allows their robot to achieve a high score in the robot game.”

Comprised of 10 students — four sixth graders who are serving on the team for a second year and six fifth graders, who are newcomers — Hearn said the team worked on their robot and project two days a week after school beginning in September.

Following their state win, Hearn said the students have begun raising money for a trip to Houston, where the Bovina team will be competing against 90 FLL teams from around the world in the FIRST World Championship competition.

For those needing more information or to donate, visit http://456robotics.org/Bovina.html.

For additional information on the FIRST World Championship, visit https://www.firstchampionship.org/.