MARTINSBURG — Berkeley County 4-H STEM Club celebrated two of its FIRST LEGO League teams return from international competitions with special awards. LEGO League Ladies, which included Stella van Hilst, Adelayna Wilson, Willow Miller, Zoey Carter, Blair Roberts and Gwéha Konan, traveled to the FIRST World Championship in Houston, Texas at the end of April where they earned the Core Values Coopertition Award. Meanwhile, the LEGO Force team, which included Jason Jones, C.J. Miller, Colton Guyer, Brady Weinbrenner, Athan Tsiatsos, Jarrett Skahill and Eddie Erfurt, competed in the WPI Annual FLL Event (WAFFLE) in Worcester, Massachusetts where they earned the Motivate finalist award trophy.
The LEGO League Ladies didn’t expect to earn an award. Before the championship, their coach Chuck Engle told them that with so many teams at the competition, it wasn’t likely they would get anything. The team was happy just to participate. The Core Values Coopertition Award is given to teams that demonstrate kindness, respect and support for every team throughout the competition, so it meant a lot to the girls.
“We had the energy,” Adelayna Wilson said. “We brought the party to the game.”
With 160 teams from 65 countries, they loved interacting with teams from all over the world and learning more about their culture. They shared how they collected pins from all the different teams, got wish bracelets from the Turkish team and even tried some Vegemite with the Australian team.
“We did the chicken dance with the Slovakian team and they knew the song ‘Country Roads,’” Stella van Hilst said. “They have their own version. At the end of the competition every team knew our song.”
More recently in June, LEGO Force returned from WAFFLE with the Motivate finalist award. The award is given to teams that demonstrate team spirit and enthusiasm, so the team was honored to be recognized after all the hard work they put into building their robot. For some of the members, like Colton Guyer, that means skipping sport practices or spending hours at home researching and coming up with new ideas.
“For me, it just felt like we got an award for being kind,” Jason Jones said. “It felt like people saw kindness and saw that we wanted to help other people out. That meant a lot to me. It showed that people were actually watching and understood what we were trying to do.”
Athan Tsiatsos said that the award was a great thing for the team, but also for the club especially as the FIRST LEGO League ends this upcoming season. The team was happy they got the chance to go in the first place, being one of 108 teams from 28 countries.
Chuck Engle said that earning these awards just reinforces all the time the team invested into learning how to code and build their robots. He’s extremely proud to see the kids grow and develop their skills.
“I hope they learn that they can do anything,” Engle said. “Nothing is too big.”
Crissy van Hilst, Ashley and Cory Miller and Kija Wilson are a few of the parents involved in the program. For them, these competitions gave their kids the chance to learn important skills and even interact with colleges that will set them up for success in the future. As a free program located in Martinsburg, they encourage other families to visit and give it a try.
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