Ashburn Robotics Heads to International Competition

After toiling away in a Brambleton basement to hone their craft, nine young members of the Ashburn Robotics team earned a spot in First Lego League World Championship, which takes place in St. Louis next month.

Mark Vanderlyn leads the Lego robotics team – comprised of students from Briar Woods and Broad Run high schools, Eagle Ridge and Stone Hill middle schools – out of his home. The architect first became involved with the Lego League when his oldest daughter joined a team.

While the Ashburn team has earned a spot in the state tournament every year since its creation in 2005, this year marks the first world competition.

”It’s very exciting. They know they have reached the pinnacle of First Lego League, or FLL,” Vanderlyn explained. “Now they are working hard to get the robot fine-tuned for the competition.”

Each year the FLL competition has a different theme. This year’s, “Body Forward,” is a nod to bioengineering.

During FLL competitions, teams vie to complete a series of tasks with their robot. Teammates may only touch their robot when it’s within an 18-inch-square portion of the table upon which they compete called the base. NXT-G software enables team members to program the machine.

At various locations across the table are modules or challenges that the team’s robot must complete autonomously. For each successfully completed mission, the team receives points. The points vary from mission to mission depending on the degree of difficulty.

For the Body Forward theme, each Lego module represents a real life medical challenge. For example, the robot must insert a stint into an artery and repair a broken bone. The challenge worth the most points is the Tissue Area Module, which requires the robot to read five black and white vertical panels and flip them so they all face north with the black side facing upwards.

“It may seem easy to complete these missions but it really takes a lot of trial and error to get the program exactly right,” Michael Vanderlyn explained. “Once the robot leaves the base, we can’t do anything to it. It has been difficult to perfect some of these programs so that it runs perfectly all of the time.”

Each team member participates in programming the robot, an essential part of the club’s teamwork. 

“We began with each of us programming a separate module,” Lindsey Vanderlyn said. “Now so many programs loop together, that to save time we have linked the programs and they all work together. Everyone gets a chance to program and no one really owns one particular module.“

The Ashburn Robotics team meets twice a week: two hours each Friday and another five hours on Sundays. Such dedication has paid off: the abundance of time and effort is the main reason the students believe they qualified for the world competition.

“We work really well together as a team,” Lindsey said. “We have fun together.”

In addition to the robotics aspect of the competition, each team must write a research paper. The Ashburn team met with Dr. Michael A. Unger at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, who showed them current research on prosthetic arms being conducted through the Proto 2 project. The Proto 2 project aims to create a prosthetic arm that offers 27 degrees of freedom, and strength and speed of movement that is similar to a human arm. The U.S. government funds the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which leads the Proto 2 project through its Revolutionizing Prosthetics program.

Heading into the world competition, Ashburn Robotics teammates said they are excited about meeting teams from all over the world – especially Germany and South Korea – but they recognize that it’s still a competition.

“They will have the best teams from all around the world,” said Alex Duan. “We will be up against the absolute best.”

Ashburn Robotics will represent Virginia and the District of Columbia. Fans and robotics enthusiasts can follow the April 27-30 competition live on NASA TV, which will stream it live.

The team must raise travel funds for competitions and has connected with Making Technology Fun, a 501(c)(3) company that provides sponsorships for technology competitions. Individuals or companies interested in donating or becoming corporate sponsors can find out more information online at www.makingtechnologyfun.com.

The Members of Ashburn Robotics:

• Alex Duan
• Kyle Dumouchelle
• Jacob Hughes
• Kaustubh Rane
• Austin Riopelle
• Nathan Riopelle
• Lindsey Vanderlyn
• Michael Vanderlyn
• Katherine Yang

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