High fives, enthusiastic cheering, team spirit and Lego bricks were all in ample supply in Howe Hall Saturday as area middle-school students competed in the 2002 First Lego League Challenge.

Fifteen teams participated in the event, sponsored by the College of Engineering Tech Know Program and the ISU Chapter of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Students used battery-powered Lego robots, programmed by computers, to perform prescribed tasks in miniaturized Lego cities.

Throughout the day, team members cheered and held signs with logos and nicknames while their robots competed. Televisions were also set up around the building for viewing each area of the event. Coaches and engineering “mentors” gave advice to each team.

Every 15 minutes, teams emerged from homerooms to raucous crowd roars usually reserved for sporting events. Each team faced a daunting task to prepare for the competition.

“There were times when [team members] worked almost all day long,” said Scott Bailey, co-coach of a team of Pella area students. He said his team, Pella First, spent about six hours a week for the last three months preparing their robot for competition.

Each team was allowed three separate 2-minute-30-second runs through the course, Bailey said. The robots were used to try to complete eight tasks related to maintenance of city services.

Some of the missions were more difficult than others, students said.

“The food loops are hardest,” said Adam Baier, an eighth-grader from Sumner.

The mission involved using a robot’s appendage to hook small plastic circles off the limbs of LEGO trees and carry the loops to a storage bin.

The entire procedure must be programmed into the robot before a run begins, and teams are penalized for every time a robot has to be freed from a stuck position.

Bailey said the penalties for restarting caused his team to use new strategies. The long series of instructions required special care to the robot’s programming, he said.

Many teams use a graphical software program called Robolab, one of two options for programming the robots, Bailey said.

“It’s a simpler version of what NASA used to control the Mars Rover,” he said.

No two teams’ robots were the same and design strategies ranged widely from compact and enclosed models to robots with innumerable outcroppings and appendages, some with the ability to extend. Navigation was accomplished using light and touch sensors, strict timing of turns and motion, or a combination of the two methods.

Teams don’t necessarily improve from trial to trial. In fact, only one team improved its score during each round of the competition.

Barb Grabill, co-coach of five students from Sumner, wasn’t surprised.

“Anything can happen,” she said. “Sometimes it gets scary.”

About 60 ISU students volunteered to help run the competition, said Camille Schroeder, co-chair of the event and administrative specialist for engineering undergraduate programs.

Iowa State hosted the competition for the second straight year, she said.

“Last year, we had four teams, but there are 15 here this year,” Schroeder said.

She said the competition is officially affiliated with the national First Lego League competition for the first time. The national program has exploded in size over the last year, she said.

“They are hoping to have a regional and national competition next year,” she said.

Almost half of the 30 registered teams in Iowa attended Saturday’s competition, Schroeder said.

“We have 14 teams from Iowa and one from Elmwood [Neb.],” she said.

Students were also given an opportunity to display research and critical thinking skills in an event called the Hypothesis. Students were expected to develop a process involving robotics technology to solve a current problem in a city. After the presentations, judges quizzed the teams about the details and feasibility of their plans.

The Pella First team took first place in the competition, but smiles triumphed over frowns on students’ faces by a wide margin at the end of the day-long event.