COLUMBUS, Ind. — A local team of elementary school students is headed to state championships in robotics.
Columbus Signature Academy Lincoln officials said the school’s FIRST LEGO League Challenge team — known as the “Robuskies” — has qualified for state championships and will compete in December. The team is led by coaches Cynthia Gover and Nick Lewis.
“We are thrilled that our students are able to see their hard work pay off in the form of an invite to state championships,” said Principal Brett Findley.
“We are one of the six (out of 19) advancing,” stated CSA Lincoln Community in a Facebook post. “We also won the breakthrough award for Innovation Project!”
The Robuskies competed in a virtual judging competition for the regional championship on Nov. 6 and traveled to Indianapolis the following week for the robot portion of the event. As part of the virtual judging, the Robuskies submitted a video pitching their idea, “School Bus Live.”
This year’s theme is transportation, so the team chose to focus on school bus safety.
In their video, students explained that the School Bus Live system would use sensors on school bus steps to keep a “live count” of students as they get on and off the bus, with numbers logged on an app.
Then, if there is an emergency and students have to evacuate the bus in middle of a route, the driver can use the app to do a quick headcount and make sure that no one is missing.
For the complete story, see Saturday’s Republic.
