Home » Santa Clarita News » West Ranch High School Host FIRST Lego League Qualifier Tournament For Los Angeles Region
FIRST, Lego Tournament, FIRST Tech Challenge, FIRST Lego League, FIRST Robotics Challenge, Students, Designers, Programmers, Programming, Design, Robotics, Technology, Kids, Children, Lego, West RanchHigh School, Santa Clarita Valley, Valencia

West Ranch High School Host FIRST Lego League Qualifier Tournament For Los Angeles Region

The FIRST Lego League Qualifying Tournament drew hundreds of children from elementary school to high school to West Ranch Sunday afternoon to face off in a competition to determine which teams will go on the the Regional Championship in Los Angeles.


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Hundreds of community members comprised of students, parents, teachers coaches and lego enthusiast converged on West Ranch High School campus to see the 32 teams, comprised of children aged 9 to 14, compete.

Each team was given identical lego kits and 15-20 mission to complete with a robot made out of legos and other components.

Teresa Smalley, coach for team 8496, has been involved with the competition since 2004.

“It’s a great program,” said Smalley “The kids are really learning really important skills in terms of working together (and) public speaking as they do their presentations. From what I’ve been able to see, this can really change a student’s direction in a positive way.”

FIRST, Lego Tournament, FIRST Tech Challenge, FIRST Lego League, FIRST Robotics Challenge, Students, Designers, Programmers, Programming, Design, Robotics, Technology, Kids, Children, Lego, West RanchHigh School, Santa Clarita Valley, Valencia

This tournament challenged participants to, design, build and program an autonomous robot to complete a series of tasks in two and a half minutes.

Over 70 volunteers from the community, made up of  COC alumni, parents and leaders from businesses in Santa Clarita came out to support the competitors in the tournament.

At the age bracket competing in the West Ranch competition,  participants are given a theme which they first do research on before they begin designing process.

The theme this year was hydrodynamics, a study based on the flow of liquids. Designers were tasked to come up with an innovation that will help solve water shortages.

Amanda West, a FIRST Tech Challenge designer, kept scores for the various teams.  

FIRST, Lego Tournament, FIRST Tech Challenge, FIRST Lego League, FIRST Robotics Challenge, Students, Designers, Programmers, Programming, Design, Robotics, Technology, Kids, Children, Lego, West RanchHigh School, Santa Clarita Valley, Valencia

“I love FIRST,” said West, “It’s just so great being able to go and help people in your community help teams and really get to see what they’re doing, because some of these teams are so amazing and the things they come up with (are) really special … Seeing how teams can make the world a better place when they just come together and brainstorm.”

The winners of last year’s competition, “The Master Minds,” are a team led by Marina Wallis, who is both the mom and coach of her 12-year-old son Jacob and 10-year-old daughter Natalie.

“(This competition) has three components, said Wallis. “The robot game, the project, and the core values. This morning they had went to a judging room where there was a panel of eight judges.”

The team gave a presentation about the research thy had done about hydrodynamics and gave a pitch for their robot, focusing on how it was designed.

Wallis’ son, Jacob Wallis, explained the theory behind the lego ‘bot. He took the lead in building the hardware his team used.

“We wanted to create a small a condensed robot that was very well structured so we could put on attachments easily and take them off easily, so that we can spend more time out on the field completing mission and less time changing attachments at base,” said Jacob. “I was the designer, so I built the attachments, and then Natalie went and programed the runs. But we still helped each other a little bit, because two minds are better than one.”

Natalie Wallis, his younger sister, did the programming for team Master Minds.

“I did most of the programing,” she said. “We used different code blocks to tell the robot’s motors what to do. “It tooks us around three months to do for three runs.”

She said losing two team members and having a completely different focus presented unique challenges to the build this year.

“We were a team of five last year, and went to Houston and won third place for the innovation of our project,” said Natalie Wallis. “Last years the season was all about animals, and this year it’s all about water, so it’s really different.”

Because the West Ranch tournament is a qualifier, six teams from this competition will go on to the regional championship, and on to the world championship in Houston in April.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology is an international organization for youth that facilitates the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), FIRST Lego League (FLL) and FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) competitions.

FIRST is divided up into four sub programs aimed at specific age groups and skill levels of design and programming.

The FIRST organization is a non-profit organization founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 to inspire students in engineering and technology fields with the help of Lego blocks and other components.

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West Ranch High School Host FIRST Lego League Qualifier Tournament For Los Angeles Region

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About Gilbert Bernal

Gilbert A. Bernal Jr. has been part of the KHTS video department since Jan 2017. He was hired as video editor in June 2017 after his four-month internship in the video department. While serving as a video intern, his duties were extended to become a multimedia journalist, producing news videos for KHTS News and Features. Gilbert was added to the KHTS team as part of the station’s continued growth and expansion. An Army veteran, father and local artist Gilbert has dedicated time and energy to volunteering at schools in the Santa Clarita Valley. At Pinetree Community Elementary School, in Canyon Country, Gilbert donated art for school auctions, photographed events and painted murals. At Canyon High, he gave two art demonstrations for the “Yes I Can” organization, a peer counseling class that focuses on learning about disabilities, social inclusion, and tolerance. Starting in Feb 2017 Gilbert launched the “KHTS Man On the Street” video features which gather and reports local opinion of Santa Clarita residents on current issues or events. A return student at College of the Canyons since 2014, Gilbert has been apart of the Media Entertainment Arts department working as a college assistant. After enrolling into the film program in 2014, he was hired to work in the camera equipment room (The Cage). There he helps students with film equipment rentals and technical advice. Gilbert received his associates degree in Film Production from College of the Canyons in 2017. He is continuing his educational path and plans to attend CSUN in Fall 2018 to work for a Bachelor's degree in Film.