Highfield Junior School students to compete again

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For nine Highfield Junior School students, having the right building blocks is what will help them win the west Toronto District School Board (TDSB) first Lego League Competition to be held at Emery Collegiate on Saturday, Nov. 22.

Team member, Urvi Patel, 10, wants to see the team go far.

"I hope that we can do our best, and try our best and try to win," said Patel.

Highfield teacher Patrizia McInnis, who runs the Lego team, hopes to see the students succeed.

"I just hope that they have a good time," said McInnis. "It's really difficult to know how you're going to do because you don't know how everybody else has been doing."

McInnis said the team has worked every lunch hour since September and have developed good working relationships.

"It's just something that they can work towards, they know that it's a big competition so they're very excited," she said. "I just hope that they learn about what it means, being on a team. They are very dedicated."

The team of Grade 4 and 5 students is confident with the work they have been doing, leading up to the Lego challenge.

Team member Harjot Sehnbe, 9, said he can see the team winning.

"I feel good about this year's competition because we worked really hard on our programming and our project. I think we're going to do good," said Harjot.

The annual international competition begins at the local level, setting children from Grades 4 to 8 in competition with each other. Last year, Highfield's team of young competitors won at the TDSB level, but lost out in the provincial level.

McInnis, who has led the Lego team three out of its four years, explained that each competition is given a theme based on environmental issues. This year the students involved have focused on climate change.

The Highfield team decided to concentrate on reducing smog in the city and had to develop a researched plan detailing how they would do so. The other component of the competition, besides the environmental education, involves programing a robot using the Lego Mind Storm Robot, which retails at $300.

Team member Jinash Shah, 10 said he is hoping to learn as much as he can about the two categories.

"I hope to win the competition, and I hope to learn new programing and more technology stuff. I hope I can even learn about climate change," said Jinash.

The robot is programmed by a Lego computer program that has the ability to make the robot move any direction and can even move based on senses such as touch, or sound.

McInnis said she helps the students plan the project and that Ari Shapiro has been helping with the programming and technical side.

Each registered team is given a mat upon which their robot is to perform 12 different missions in two-and-a-half minutes. The teams are judged based on a point system, that include both of the categories as well as points for working well as a team.

"You build the robot anyway you want, you're just given the box," said McInnis. "You add the wheels, you add the arms, you add whatever you think you need to help complete the missions."

Choosing a team was a difficult feat, McInnis said as there were over 70 students interested. To be fair, the school held tryouts and chose the students they thought would do the best job.

"It was really difficult to choose. We could have more than one team if we wanted but, then it costs more. It's $250 for every team to register."

Urvi said she is interested in Lego and that's why she wanted to try out.

"I joined the Lego team because I always help out my brother with Lego," said Urvi. "I really like building stuff."

As for feeling any pressure because of the success of the team last year, none of the students said they were nervous, just excited.

McInnis was the only one to express any feelings of pressure, but she said she is confident in the team and enjoys seeing them work together.

"It brings the ages together because it's the Grade 4s and 5s, so they get to see each other and they're all new to each other. Some of them are in the same classes, but they just build new relationships."