Photos by STEPHANIE BOWEN

The Bulldog Builders in action.

by Stephanie Bowen
for Burns Times-Herald

The Bulldog Builders, a team of students from Slater Elementary, are taking their interest in robotics to the next level. In their second year, they won the Robot Design Award for the Eastern Oregon Region and advanced to state competition on Jan. 15. 

Coaches Shane Sweet and Randi Johnson are excited about their teams’ prospects: at the regional qualifier the Bulldog Builders ranked 15 out of 41 teams in the state, even though they had to compete virtually.

The robot, named “SkyNet,” was built using a new education system called Spike Prime from Lego, the iconic building toy manufacturer. Spike Prime combines colorful kits of blocks with easy-to-use hardware to teach engineering and robotics concepts. Students programmed “SkyNet” (along with five other robots to-date) using block-based coding similar to Scratch, a free programming software familiar to many kids.  These kits, along with the intuitive drag-and-drop coding language, are designed to make it relatively easy for kids to jump in, regardless of their learning level.

Started in 2020, amidst challenges presented from COVID, the team began learning online using Google Meets with fourth-grade teacher Emma Roberts as co-coach with Sweet.  Although they eventually started meeting in person in the Lincoln Building, the first-year team did not make it to state.  

This year, Johnson, a second-grade teacher at Slater, stepped in, and the Bulldog Builders invested in three new robotics kits. They also acquired Chromebooks and found a room at the Hines Middle School to meet one or two times a week. The team also kept meeting once a week online, in preparation for competition in the First Lego League Challenge bracket against 9-14 year old students. The Bulldog Builders are considerably younger with six fifth graders (Cooper Volle, Layne Sweet, Fielder Davis, McKenzie Kelley, Ethan Stampke, and Emily Angell) and one fourth-grader (Cody Toelle). Toelle and Angell are new to the team this year.

After the Lego League Challenge, the team traveled to Ontario for an in-person scrimmage that many teams in Oregon didn’t have a chance to attend due to COVID restrictions. This was coach Sweet’s favorite experience to date.

He said, “We received amazing feedback from the judges and organizers about the way our kids carried themselves. It was really exciting to see all the little tweaks and corrections they made to the robot during competition breaks, which translated to completing more missions and scoring extra points during the robot games.”

For most of the Bulldog Builders, the highlight was making a video for the Innovation Project, which was an opportunity for the students to solve a real-world challenge with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). After talking to experts and local UPS employees, the team set out to design a prototype model to improve drone delivery of time-sensitive packages. Part of the challenge was communicating their ideas with a skit and turning it into a video to put on YouTube.

While being part of the Bulldog Builders hasn’t necessarily hit the kids’ radars for career planning yet, students can see the enjoyment of learning robotics as a potential hobby or something to do as a family or to teach to others. These Slater students are building their confidence and resilience, along with some 21st-century skills that can impact their future success and help them become the innovative minds of tomorrow.

“Our students are young and can continue to compete until they are 14,” Coach Sweet said. “As their STEM skills improve, they will get more sophisticated with their control algorithms and robot design.  I am confident that this group could go to nationals if they stick with it.”  

The Bulldog Builders would like to thank Melodie Wilson at Malheur ESD, Parr Lumber, Switch Canyon Branding, ORTOP, and local administrators for practice facilities.