Chimacum Elementary students are gearing up to compete in the FIRST Lego League Robotics Challenge this winter, giving them firsthand experience in both robotics competitions and the same STEM fields that NASA uses to create and operate its rovers on Mars.

Three teams of Chimacum Elementary fifth-graders, each made up of 10 students, has been meeting in class four days a week, before the start of the school day, to work on their own Lego robots for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition at Bainbridge Island High School this December.

Chimacum Elementary Principal Jason Lynch touted the Lego robotics program as a hands-on way to integrate a number of STEM and other subjects, while giving students the satisfaction of solving “real-world” problems.

Madeline Webb, one of three teachers who guide their own teams of students, agreed with Lynch that the program also imparts cooperative core values by teaching team members to work together “with graciousness and professionalism.”

Lynch and Webb said this year’s FIRST Lego League challenge, “Into Orbit,” tasks students with tackling the long-term physical, social and emotional consequences of space travel.

“We’re identifying factors such as lack of communication and healthiness, and then seeing if we can develop solutions for them,” Webb said.

Mitch Brennan, another of the teachers, said those impacts can include what a prolonged lack of gravity does to the body, which students have researched by sending letters to an astronaut who spent 195 days on the International Space Station.

“Even the kids who aren’t in the robotics club are doing research papers and reading articles by Bill Nye about space,” Brennan said. “And the students who are in the club have a huge advantage when it comes to insights on space.”

Brennan commended his robotics team members for being inclusive, and “not just grabbing things,” since they have to share limited resources, while the third teacher, Josette Mendoza, has witnessed the students gaining self-confidence through the act of doing.

“They follow directions, step by step, and become problem-solvers by the end,” Mendoza said.

Tony Liske, one of the parents who volunteers his team to supervising the robotics students, echoed Lynch at being “amazed” so many kids are willing to come to school half an hour early for this.

“He’s super wound-up to get up and get here,” Liske said. 

“I’m impressed. All these robots are beyond me,” he added with a laugh.

Lynch aims to expand the robotics program to every grade level in the district, on up through middle and high school, to foster “a continuous potential career path” in computer science and other STEM fields, thereby developing “skilled capable citizens for our community.”