Ladue area Robotics team, Neon Electrons, gear up to compete in the Eastern Missouri Robotics Championship this Sunday

Neon Electrons, a rookie Robotics team comprised of 10 Girl Scouts from Ladue, are competing in the Eastern Missouri Robotics Championship this Sunday after advancing in the league qualifying tournament in November. The league qualifying tournament included 150 Robotics teams competing for one of 40 spots available in championship.

In addition to earning one of those 40 spots, the Neon Electrons received the Innovative Solution Award. The award recognizes a team that presents an exceptionally well-considered and creative solution to the problem examined in the research portion of the competition.

 Nandini Jain, a member of the Neon Electrons, said that they focused their research project on food contamination and ice cream. They started their season by visiting ice cream shops and searching for things that needed to be improved.

“We noticed that the employees were not wearing gloves,” Nandini said. “We asked the employees about it and they said that gloves made it difficult for them to scoop out ice cream. From there, we realized that we needed to find a solution.”

Nandini says that they brainstormed in meetings and came up with two prototypes: gloves that were simple and easy to use and a scoop grip that would be placed on the handle of an ice cream scooper to make it easier to grasp. However, before the girls could propose this solution they had to first make the judges aware of the problem.

Grace Hardester, another member of the Neon Electrons, said that they performed a skit for the judges that included a sick girl, an employee and a second customer.

“The sick girl came in first and paid the employee with money that she had coughed all over,” Grace said. “The employee touched the money then went on to serve the second customer without wearing gloves.”

Following the skit the girls proposed their innovative solution of wearing gloves and using scoop grips. Nandini said that she believes they won the Innovative Solution Award because their solution was simple, easy to use and at a low cost.

 Girl Scout Robotics is a program created through a partnership with Girl Scouts of USA (GSUSA) and FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology).  The program fosters opportunities for girls to explore STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers by providing hands-on experience in the designing, building and programming of robots.

For the robot portion of the Robotics competition the girls use LEGO® Mindstorm, a game kit that contains the software and hardware necessary to create small, customizable and programmable robots. Each team is responsible for programming the robot to complete a series of missions that revolve around food safety.

The Neon Electrons programmed their robot to complete three missions during the last tournament but will be adding two new missions to the robot for the competition on Sunday. One of the missions performed at the last competition included programming the robot to walk in a stair-step pattern to collect germs on different parts of the game table and traveling in reverse to end at the east wall, the wall that receives the most points.

The next stage of the Robotics competition is the Eastern Missouri Championship to be held this Sunday at St. Louis Community College in Florissant.. One team from the Eastern Missouri Championship will be selected to represent the greater St. Louis area at the FIRST® World Championship in April.

Girls who participate in Robotics are inspired to become science and technology leaders in the future and truly enjoy the hands-on experience.  Take advantage of the Robotics program to get your daughter or a young girl that you know interested in STEM as well. Contact Michelle Currie at 314.592.2376 or mcurrie@girlscoutsem.org to find out how to get a young girl enrolled for next season.

Information was provided by the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri.