Garrett science, tech team Maryland champs

Student engineers also won last year

Sarah Moses

OAKLAND - For the second year in a row, Garrett County FIRST LEGO League team NExT GEN has won the Maryland championships.

"As a veteran teacher, this has been the most rewarding educational experience," Ar-lene Lantz, teacher at Swan Meadow School and coach of NExT GEN, said. "It's a wonderful hands-on experience for these kids."

On April 17-19, the team from Southern Middle School will represent Maryland at the FIRST LEGO League World Festival at the Georgia Dome and Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

FIRST is an acronym that represents For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, an organization that sponsors robotics competitions for both middle and high school age groups.

NExT GEN won the Champion's Award at the Maryland Tournament on Jan. 26, with 70 other teams competing for the overall prize.

Students Stephanie Shreve, Collin Lynch, Aaron Lantz, Sam Thomas, Emily Huxford and Nick McGettigan had to complete and program a LEGO robot and give a presentation on this year's topic: "Power Puzzle, Energy resources - meeting the global demand."

NExT GEN studied the Swan Meadow School building and found areas where energy was being lost through gaps at doors and windows and lack of insulation. They listed a series of short-term solutions to energy problems and then proposed an energy-producing solution, using cow waste as an energy source.

Their presentation on cow power was given to judges at the competition and again Monday night to the Garrett County Board of Education.

Despite the overall win for NExT GEN, the award for best robot performance went to another Garrett County team.

Chuck Trautwein, technology coordinator for Garrett County and coach for the Bloomington School team, said he was very proud of them. It was the second year in a row the team achieved the award for top robot performance.

He said that he is proud of all the students who participated in the LEGO league tournaments.

"They make Garrett County extremely proud," Trautwein said. "I was telling the kids here at Bloomington the other day the reason why FIRST was started was to give as much excitement and emphasis on science, math and engineering as there is on professional sports. It's really close to it."

He said the program gives the students a realistic goal. The odds of becoming a professional athlete might be slim, but there is a real chance that these students could one day be engineers.

Once these students finish middle school, they will be able to participate with the high school team, which joins both Northern and Southern as one team to build and program a much larger robot. The high school team will send off its robot next week for the state competition in March.

Contact Sarah Moses at smoses@times-news.com.