Community Corner

Lego Teams Building Foundation for Success in Medfield

Editor's note: The following information was provided to Medfield Patch by Medfield Patch contributor Theresa Knapp.

Rob and Sharon Tatro started an all-boy Lego team in Medfield in 2010 for their son, Scott, who was in fifth grade at the time, along with his friends.

The team was comprised of seven boys – Scott Tatro, Jon Kohler, Brian Knott, Liam Farrell, Patrick O'Connor, Peter Vigoda and Chris Hogan – and competed in the First Lego League (FLL) in 2010 and 2011.

Rob Tatro, an elementary school physical education teacher in Needham, heard about the league through kids in his school and wanted to get involved.

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Seeing the fun their brothers were having in the FLL, several of the girls wanted to join, so the “Medfield Pink Peeps” was created in 2011 and included five girls – Rachel Tatro, Molly Carpenter, Ella Kohler, Amy Knott and Eileen Morrill.

FLL's theme in 2011 was "Food Factor." The theme presented teams with a two-part challenge – build and program a robot that would compete in a variety of challenges on a pre-established field and choose a food product and trace it through production and distribution to see where it might become contaminated and then come up with a solution on how to prevent contamination. 

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The Pink Peeps chose the Dairy Queen Blizzard to research as their Food Factor Challenge. The girls made a trip to the Hood plant, where the mix is manufactured to see how it is made and were taught about food safety. They also took an overnight trip to Maine to visit a Dairy Queen and they observed the opening of a DQ and watched how they clean and sanitize the machine each day. 

The Pink Peeps presented their information in a skit, demonstrating how the milk is processed into the ice cream and then goes to the final user. They then showed a customer getting a contaminated ice cream and then showed the same customer getting a clean version in a different version of the skit. A narrator voiced over the food safety information and their "clean ice cream" solution, which was an ice cream cone shaped alarm that would remind the employees to clean the machines each morning. 

The girls and the boys teams competed in a tournament this past December in Quincy against 48 other regional teams. 

The top 14 teams at that December tournament moved on to the state tournament, which was held in January at WPI. Team scores are comprised of robot performance, presentation of research, technical judging of the robot and core values judging of the team. The Peeps placed in the top 14 and won an "Outstanding Rookie" award in the competition. The boys team just missed qualifying and was first on the wait list for the state tournament.

While the Peeps did not place in the top two – which would have qualified them to attend a national competition – they had a very strong showing. They were invited back to Hood to present their performance for several people who had helped them along the way. They were also invited to present at a forum for employees at a local company who wanted to learn more about FLL. 

If this is something that your child may be interested in next year or more importantly, something you may be willing to coach next year, contact Sharon Tatro at sktatro@verizon.net.


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