Congratulations to all of the members of the Middle School Robotics team and their coaches for their most excellent work at this past weekend’s FIRST Lego League competition. The following summary comes to us courtesy of Middle School science teacher and Robotics Team coach Sherezada Acosta:

Our robotics season has come to an end. This weekend’s tournament was a great end to the months of hard work. I am happy to report that out of the 82 schools at the event, which represented the top performing teams in the New York City area, the LREI Robotics Advance Team received a 5th Place Award in the Robot Design category. This is an incredible achievement! For this award, the judges “look for teams whose work stands out for innovation and dependability. To assess innovation, the judges watch the robots work, looking for things that make them say ‘Wow!’ They interview team members to reveal the less obvious unique and inventive ideas. To assess dependability, the judges interview the teams to learn what solid principles and best practices were used to reduce variability and errors. Preference is given to robots that are best able to ‘back it up’ throughout the matches.”

As for the Rookie Team, just the fact that they did so well in the last competition and qualified to be in this one, which was mainly filled with veteran teams with more experience, was pretty amazing as well.

Both teams also got very positive feedback on the presentations and interviews with the judges. Below are some of the comments they wrote:

• Advance Team:
  “Excellent team and energy displayed”
  “Innovative Presentation! … Thinking out of the Box”
  “Amazing integration of individual goals with benefits to the community; creative idea to combine health and energy issues”

• Rookie Team:
  “Excellent teamwork and Robot Presentation”
  “High enthusiasm; engaged with activities designed to improve school life”
  “Excellent movie!!”

I was very proud of both teams’ performance at the event. It was a VERY long day (almost 10 hours!), but they did an incredible job of representing our school. Their enthusiasm and support of not only each other but other teams as well, was recognized by the announcers any time LREI was in the competing area, other parents and other team coaches. I was approached several times by different people to compliment our group. Even the photographers and video crew seemed to love them. When our kids were competing they spent most of the time covering them!

Well done!

The MS Boy’s basketball team played the first game of the the St. Hugh’s/LREI Holiday Invitational Tournament against St. Hugh’s last Thursday, December 6th. The game started out strong for the boys, who hit their first couple of shots and took an 8 point lead. St. Hugh’s three big men and defensive aggressiveness kept them in the game and started to disrupt the up-tempo style of the LREI Knights. As the game started to slip away, Quinn Hood hit a number of big shots to keep LREI in the game. Jack Irving and Cole Kitchen took turns defending the leading scorer from St. Hugh’s. LREI let a 6 point lead slip away in the last 2 minutes and the two teams headed to overtime to decide the outcome. Jimmy Hall had a big game for the Knights on both sides of the court and out muscled St. Hugh’s big men for most of the game. In overtime, he took control and scored the decisive basket. Malcolm Staso hit a huge free throw to clinch the game and send the team to the championship game. On Saturday, December 8th, the team took on Epiphany in the championship game. LREI got off to a great start and never looked back as they won 48-28. Quinn Hood was named Tournament MVP, and Cole Kitchen and Jimmy Hall were named to the All-Tournament team. LREI had contributions from all players who played very unselfish basketball. Congratulations!

For many years, robotics has played an important role in the Middle School science and technology curricula. As many of you already know, our classroom inquiry has been supplemented by our award winning Middle School Robotics team. This year, interest in the program has grown so much that we now have two teams competing in the FIRST Lego League. This past weekend, both teams competed in the Manhattan borough competition and they both did extremely well.

• The Advanced Team won 1st place in the Robot Performance category– their robot achieved the highest score in the competition in this category.

• The Rookie Team won the Champion’s Award — the Champion’s Award is given to the team that achieves the highest combined score from their Project Presentation, Technical Presentation, Robot Performance and Teamwork

Most impressive. Under the guidance of science teacher Sherezada Acosta, art teacher Carin Cohen, and computer teacher Steve Neiman, both teams will now prepare for the FIRST Lego League Citywide Competition in which the top teams from the five boroughs will compete against each other. This competition will take place on January 26th, so save the date! More details to come in January.