Students build competition robots

Students work on robots that can meet the test of competition.

Students from Rita Olson's Gifted and Talented class, made up of students ages 8 to 14 from both Hacker Middle School and Mountain Home Junior High School, join together every Monday to work on their project for the "First Lego League" robotics competition.

"It's important for them (the students) to do this project because it challenges them both academically and gives them a better perspective of looking into the future of their community," said Olson.

The students, whose team name is "Lego My Lego 3.14," will rotate working on three tasks as part of the project -- construction and mission completion, research and T-shirt design (a task to boost team morale).

Every year the contest focuses on a different real-world topic related to the sciences and each challenge within the competition revolves around that theme.

The robotics part of the competition involves designing and programming Lego robots to complete tasks. The students work out solutions to the various problems they are given and then meet for regional tournaments to share their knowledge, compare ideas and display their robots.