Middle School Robotics wins award at state event

The Wilbraham & Monson Academy Middle School takes its Robotics team seriously, and that commitment showed at a state event in November.

Both WMA teams placed in separate categories at the highly-competitive First League Lego Challenge Nov. 19 at Newton North High School.

The Blue team of Owen Dolley ’29, Lucas Lawrence ’29, Rosalie Machowski ’29, Daniel Pierce ’29, Lena Plouffe ’28, Khloe Thomas ’28, Audrey Vipond ’29 and Jonathan Wei ’27 finished second in the field of 18 teams in Robot Design.

Meanwhile, performing in front of the entire audience, the Red team of Jack Bertera ’28, Cameron Chagnon ’27, Andrew Chang ’28, Sophia Drollett ’28, Nikos Kratimenos ’28, Max Li ’27, Braden Lora ’29, Norah Osborn ’28, Dylan Shonak ’27 and Isabella Thomas ’27 accumulated enough points on the two-and-a-half minute robot mission course to take sixth.

Quotes from Mr. Luke Pelletier, the Head Coach of Robotics

On why it’s important to attend the First Lego League Challenge: “The real goal is to expose the students to science and technology while having an enjoyable experience. The downside to the competitions and focusing on the awards is it takes away from learning and fun to pressure, resistance to participate and possible coaches doing too much of the work the students should be doing to make sure the team is successful.” 

On what the WMA Middle School students get out of attending the FLL Challenge: “The competition puts an end date on the season and rewards the students to show off with pride the work that they completed in the after-school activity.”

Quotes from Khloe Thomas

On the Blue team placing second: “I thought we worked really hard and we definitely deserved it. It was unexpected at the time, but we were all really happy about it.”

On participating at the FLL Challenge: “There’s a lot more pressure. You have multiple people there. It’s important to work together in order to do well.”