As the robotics competition season ended, FIRST Lego League (FLL) team Penta Panthers consisting of seventh graders from South Pointe Middle School (SPMS) won the Best Design and the Rising All-Star Award after being coached by Walnut High School senior mentors Dylan Thai, Anson Lin, Ryan Tsai, Issac Sum and Harry Zhang.
As a part of the FLL, the team used Legos to create their robot, coding it to move in certain ways to complete the challenges they would face at the competition. The team members consisted of five SPMS seventh graders: Asher Tseng, Alton Mak, Colton Yu, Nathan Chang and Evan Loh. After making it through the qualifying tournament at Diamond Bar High School (DBHS), they went on to compete at the regional tournament at La Cañada High School.
“If [the high schoolers] didn’t give us advice, we wouldn’t have made it to regionals and would have had a much harder time to succeed during the game,” seventh grader Mak said.
After winning the Best Design Award at DBHS, the team competed at La Cañada, earning the “Rising All-Star Award” and winning one of the two awards out of over 38 other competing teams. The competition consisted of 15 missions that required the robot to perform various tasks in a two-and-a-half minute time period. However, their journey did not come without obstacles. The team started preparing two months later than other teams in the same tournament. To make up for lost time, they met over four times a week, with each practice lasting over four hours. They ensured that at least one mentor was present at every robotics meeting, organized fundraisers and taught them how to design their robots, research and plan out their calendars.
“We would help them coordinate with their parents and plan when they need deadlines done in order to compete at the competitions. We also helped them with fundraising. One of the examples is the Ten Ren fundraiser we held, where we raised money to go towards purchasing things like extra parts and tables they needed, as well as supplies for their presentation, like poster boards, glue and other craft supplies for their project,” Thai said.
The five senior coaches are a part of FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team #5857 Walnut Valley Robotics. They started off learning about robotics in middle school and now want to help younger students develop a passion for the activity.
“When I was in sixth grade, I started robotics and had help from other high schoolers. Since the five of us are seniors, we’re going to be graduating soon, so we wanted to sort of carry on the legacy,” Zhang said.
By coaching the Penta Panthers, the seniors hope to encourage them to continue pursuing robotics and to develop a passion for it.
“Hopefully in the future, when they grow up and become high schoolers, they might be able to go back and mentor the newer middle schoolers,” Lin said.
Even after these victories, the Penta Panthers continue to build robots for off-season competitions as they continue to learn and grow in robotics.
“I’m super proud of them and what they’ve been able to accomplish, and I hope they can continue to do engineering in their future with other people in our community,” Thai said.
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