By Johnny Jackson
jjackson@henryherald.com

Matt Clark, Stephen Piper and Josh Kennedy hope they have given their robot the right program to win the state FIRST LEGO competition.

The 15-year-olds recently outpaced other challengers to win the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Super-Regional Competition, held on Jan. 9 at Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta.

The team of home-schooled McDonough pupils is vying for the second-straight year in the competition, an international program created in 1998 by a partnership between FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), and The LEGO Group. The program is designed to promote and encourage research, engineering and teamwork among young students.

In the state LEGO competition, teams of high school students must research and use engineering skills to formulate practical solutions to everyday problems using robots. The teams are judged in four areas, including project presentation, technical design and programming, robot performance, and teamwork.

The McDonough team — known as the RoBUGs, or “RoBots Under God” — won the competition’s “Champion’s Award,” which is awarded to the team which has the highest combined score.

The team also took first place in “robotic performance” which earned it the opportunity to participate in the FLL State Competition Jan. 23 at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. They will compete among the state’s top 48 FLL teams.

“I’m extremely proud of my team for what they have accomplished,” said Georgia Clark, coach of the RoBUGs team and mother of Matt Clark. “They worked really hard for this.”

Georgia Clark said the team’s progress is the result of more than 300 man hours logged since September, when the students started working on their competition project.

“They had to choose a problem associated with transportation, do research, and come up with a solution to the problems,” said Georgia Clark.

She said the team chose to find a solution to a problem which affects most metro-Atlanta residents — traffic congestion. She would not divulge details of the project, as the team is still in the competition.

“This team is hardworking and very focused and committed,” she said. “They are also very good friends. They get along very well, and they have fun while they’re working to achieve their goals. They love what they’re doing, so they don’t mind putting in the time.”

She said she is hopeful that her team will do well at the state competition, and will have a chance at competing in the FIRST LEGO League World Festival and Championship, April 15-17, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

Georgia Clark said she tries to encourage others to take part in the FIRST LEGO League because of the good she has seen it do for students’ creativity and teamwork.

“A lot of people on this side of town don’t know about FIRST LEGO League,” she said. “It’s a great program for the kids, because they learn so much about engineering. They also learn a lot of life skills.”

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On the net:

Georgia FIRST LEGO League: www.georgiafll.org