Marlowe Students Compete At First LEGO League-Regional

When Gadget Attack places its robot on the mission board at the First LEGO League Illinois Regional Tournament this Saturday in Rockford, remarkable victories already will have been achieved.

Only last spring did the four sixth-grade girls from Marlowe Middle School in Lake in the Hills form the Gadget Attack squad. That was the easy part.

Since then Catey Johnson, Alyssa Schechtel, Emily Schlitz and Zoe Zuzzio have spent hundreds of hours preparing for the regional competition including designing, assembling and programming a robot. They've also been researching and organizing a presentation based on the competition’s yearly theme.

“I told the girls that if we get through it all, build something that works, and have fun along the way, then I’m happy,” said Zachary Zuzzio, a computer engineer who, with wife Michelle, a civil engineer, serves as Gadget Attack’s coach and assistant coach, respectively. Zoe is their daughter.

It was Zachary Zuzzio who first learned of the First LEGO League and asked Zoe if she and some friends would be interested in competing. Then, a handful of interested parties were assembled. The idea was pitched to their parents before Gadget Attack reached its current ensemble.

“We have four energetic go-getter girls, said Zachary Zuzzio, who also coaches youth soccer for Huntley Park District. “What impresses me most is they’ve done all this research and all this work, and there’s no grade involved. They’ve done it literally for the fun of it.”

Michelle Zuzzio says the other parents have noticed their daughters’ dedication and enthusiasm.

“Some of the moms have told me that even though they’ve had another event to go to, (their daughters) are saying, ‘Oh mom, but we have a LEGO meeting tonight. Please, can we just cancel?’ ” Michelle Zuzzio said.

LEGO Creations Must Conduct Missions

Gadget Attack usually meets in the Zuzzio family basement, where just off the stairway is a room they’ve dubbed The LEGO Lab. There “Bob-bot,” as the girls call their nearly foot-long robot constructed mostly from LEGO pieces and a motor, performs tasks or missions.

The missions, which are predetermined by the First LEGO League and performed on First LEGO League-provided mats, will earn the team points at regional play. The missions also incorporate a First LEGO League theme. This year’s theme is Food Factor: Keeping Food Safe.

“The theme looks at food safety beginning with where food is grown and continuing through the preparation, processing and the transportation of it,” Zachary Zuzzio said. “It looks at all the possibilities that food can get contaminated or become unsafe for consumers.”

As part of the regional contest, each team also must research the theme and present its ideas to a panel of judges.

“What (teams) have to do in terms of a research project is similar to a science fair project,” Zachary Zuzzio said.

For their presentation, the girls focused on one of their favorite foods — watermelon, and will suggest ultrasound as a means to eliminate bacteria.

Still, the main focus at First LEGO League contests is the missions.

At the Rockford competition, one mission the robots will be asked to complete is collecting tiny LEGO pieces, deemed bacteria, from a hopper and then taking them to a small sink also made up of LEGO pieces. A second mission simulates the adjusting of a cooking thermometer by requiring robots to raise or lower a lever on a stack of LEGO blocks.

But just as there’s some strategy in constructing a robot that can successfully complete missions, so, too, is the decision of which missions the robot will pursue.

Missions Have Time Limits

Teams only have 2½ minutes to complete as many of the 15 missions as possible with more points assigned to the trickier missions. Which missions to target can change throughout the competition, too, with each team allowed four opportunities.

“It’s changing all the time,” said Zachary Zuzzio, of how the team pursues missions. “Once the girls got their robot out (on the mat) and got to where, say, the yellow truck was, then it became a situation of, ‘Hey, because we don’t have to go back to our base, let’s see if we can empty the harvester while we’re here.’ ”

One thing that remains consistent is the girls’ strong desire to wear their newly arrived T-shirts.

“We just got our shirts in, and they immediately wanted to wear them to school because they all know they have a story to tell about this really odd thing that no one else is doing,” Zachary said Zuzzio. “I told them, ‘Why don’t we until Monday because then you’ll have an even better story to tell about the competition?”