Congratulations To Roosevelt Island Girl Scout Tech Hoppers - Meet Our Local NYC First Lego League Robot Builders April 19 At Roosevelt Island Library For Awards Presentation And Demo Of Their Robot Project

The Roosevelt Island Girl Scouts Tech Hoppers competed in and won awards in the recent NYC First Lego League (FLL) Challenge robot building program. 

The Tech Hoppers were introduced by Girl Scout Troop 3233 Leader Susy del Campo Perea during the April 3 Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Board of Directors meeting public session and received the congratulations of Board members.

Roosevelt Island Girl Scout Troop 3233 Leader Suzy del Campo Perea reports:

The Roosevelt Island Girl Scout Tech Hoppers invites our community, adults and youth, to the presentation of their NYC First Lego League Challenge Bronze Award Project this Wednesday April 19 from 6:15-7pm at the New York Public Library Roosevelt Island Branch (504 Main Street) .  

The Tech Hoppers will have a presentation about the renewable energy innovation project they researched, follow by Q&A and close with a showcase of the robot they built for the FLL.

When you talk or hear the word robotics in elementary or middle school, you certainly think of something very basic. maybe something like a car moving back and forth, or just a square box with a movable part up and down; and then you add competition, it sounds like faster, bigger and brighter. Then you add Legos and it sounds more exciting for kids and confusing for adults.

The Tech Hoppers is so much more than having a robot made out of Legos. It is about researching a topic given, based on the research, creating an innovation, talking to experts in the field, building a prototype based on your innovation and research, and presenting their findings to 3-5 judges during the competition. The cherry on the cake, is that they also get to build, with special Legos, a robot with 6 motors, one brain and different moving arms and parts, and then programming it to go through a map with several movable Lego structures in 2.5 min

First, the Roosevelt Island Tech Hoppers worked in the Core Values of FIRST (innovation, fun, )

Then they got the topic of Renewable Energy and started working on that Research.

At the same time they started assembling their robot and dived in programming it, testing and run it every single weekend @ Cornell Tech Café.

Not long after, they came with an innovation for renewable energy, moved from sun based solar energy to soil based microbial fuel cells.

Week after week they made progress in all 3 areas: core values, innovation and robot programming.

They wet their feet on their first competition, a scrimmage at Chapin School where they won 1st Place Core Values. They learned the rules of the game and saw their competition.

Qualifiers were held in February where they won 2nd place in Robot design and the Silver Ticket to pass to Semifinals!

By March 5th @ Semifinals the Tech Hoppers won their Golden ticket to Finals and another Core Values Trophy! They only had 7 days to polish and correct anything that will put them closer to score higher at Finals.

Finally the moment they were waiting for: compete at the Finals of FLL on March 12th, which is the equivalent of the FLL State finals.

Our very own Tech Hoppers compete against teams between 4th-8th grade, winning 2nd place Core Values!

It was indeed a sweet victory as they were the only team of Girl Scouts, and the only team with High School Coaches, instead of professional adults that have years of experience and/or professional instructors.

The Tech Hoppers wouldn’t have made it this far with out the support and partnership of GSGNY, Cornell Tech, Cornell Tech Café, their Girl Scout family members and troop sisters, and of course our Roosevelt Island Community.

The Tech Hoppers are:

• Alexa Baldwin
• Alyse MacGonagle 
• Ava Gordon 
• Chelsea Chang 
• Duygu Gurdal 
• Itziar Borja del Campo 
• Kai Putnam 
• Leire Borja del Campo 
• Madison Chang 
• Mina Kim 

Tech Hoppers Coaches: 

• Alua Zhanuzakova 
• Charlotte Peterson 

Mentors and Hosts: 

• Cornell Tech, specially Sophie Lanchez 
• Heather Smith (GSGNY Troop 3001) 
• Fay Christian (GSGNY Troop 3233) 
• Mor Naaman (Cornell Tech, GSGNY Dad) 
• Roberto Borja (NYCHA, GSGNY Dad) 

Volunteers: 

• Conall MacGonagle 
• Ender Gurdal 
• Eddie Chang 
• Jenn Chang

The Tech Hoppers name was chosen because the Girl Scouts meet and have support from Cornell Tech and in honor of Grace Hopper, a pioneer in computer programming.

Learn more about NYC First Lego League Challenge robotic competition.