Montwood Middle School robotics team prepares for lego competition

Montwood Middle School’s Mighty Moose Robotics Team is preparing for the Lego League World Festival in Houston.

The group of students recently competed in the First Lego League Regional Competition and won first place. Now, they’re taking their project to the state festival later this month.

“It’s very theoretical, lots of the program that we did was a very big guessing game to get the robot to where it is right now,” Adrian Arellanes said.

As part of the “Animal Allies” phase of the competition, students programmed robots to move animals and complete tasks. The team was also required to complete a research project.

“We had to do a research project, we wanted to do something that not everybody knew about. And that’s trapping and neutering cats, because not nobody knows how many cats you can actually have,” Arellanes said.

After teaming up with Sun City Cats, the students gained insight on their “Trap Neuter Return Program.”

“Not many know this is a big thing, and it is, see you have a lot of cat running around the streets, but you don’t know what happens to the environment with them,” Raven Schatte said.

The team won first place, bringing home a lego trophy that is now proudly displayed in their school’s trophy case.

“Last year we tried it but we didn’t succeed, but this year we came back stronger and we actually got somewhere,” Jesus Tovar said.

The students tell Abc-7 skill, knowledge and science made all the difference this year, but it was teamwork that got them this far.

“It was fun working with them. Even though it might be a little hard, but the team’s built on friendship,” Schatte said.

As they prepare for the next phase, they tell Abc-7 they hope to inspire their peers too.

“Next year the 8th graders are going to leave, so we’re hoping that the kids that are here right now can keep it going,” Arellanes said.

The Lego League World Festival is scheduled for April 19th-22nd.