Mark Twain LEGO Team

LEGO League Team Earns 2nd Place
Posted on 01/06/2020
This is the image for the news article titled LEGO League Team Earns 2nd Place

Mark Twain Elementary School has been selected to receive funding and support for the next five years to build and maintain a FIRST LEGO League team for students in grades 4-8, ages 9-14. The funding opportunity, totaling more than $6,150 over the course of the next five years, comes as part of the Tesla K-12 Education Investment in Nevada program.

Calling themselves the Galaxy Innovators, the school began its LEGO program starting late in October of 2019. The team met twice a week after school to work on key qualifiers on which their robot will be judged in completing various missions. Those included Robot Design, Innovation Project, Core Values and Coding.

As early as Saturday, Dec. 21, 2019, the elementary school’s team competed at its first Northern Nevada Qualifiers. Held at Dayton Intermediate School, the team placed second overall in Core Values and 14th in robot games.

The criteria for judging in the Core Values portion of the event included the following.

  • Discovery: explore new skills and ideas.
  • Innovation: use creativity and persistence to solve problems.
  • Impact: apply what we learn to improve the world.
  • Inclusion: respect each other and embrace differences.
  • Teamwork: stronger when working together.
  • Fun: enjoy and celebrate what they do.

Mark Twain Elementary School’s FIRST LEGO League team members include alphabetically: Sydney Ashby, fifth grade, Cassidy Branham, fifth grade, Nickolas Cotsonis, fifth grade, Sarah Payan, fourth grade, and Grady Schwartz, fifth grade. Coaches include Ms. Tearra Bobula and Mrs. Susan Ikehara.