Kids learn while having fun with robots

Even Lorraine Greenwald, dean of Farmingdale State College's business school and a trained computer scientist, marveled Saturday as about 300 students practiced for an upcoming LEGO competition.

The robots they had made weren't the LEGO log cabins she used to build, said Greenwald, 51.

In the college's Roosevelt Hall Saturday, 10-year-old Connor Sweeney of Oyster Bay set down his team's LEGO robot, about to be scored on how well the contraptions performed tasks related to food safety.

With 9-year-old teammates Shawn Kelly and William Durban watching, Sweeney punched a code on a small computer console mounted on what looked like a miniature motor vehicle with mechanical arms. Durban had programmed the robot through trial and error to travel a specific distance at an exact angle, and then for the arms to move.

The boys focused as the machine rolled slowly to plastic fish perched on the table. The robot's arm, with a sweep, gathered the fish and rolled back to the spot where it had started. Sweeney pumped his fist.

At other tables, similar robots controlled by similarly scientifically inclined kids placed plastic food on a table, or knocked plastic pieces representing bacteria off a stand, then gathered and took them away.

The 35 teams were trying out their robots before doing the real thing Jan. 28 and 29 at the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League tournament in Massapequa. Top qualifiers will compete for trophies at championships March 3 in Middle Island.

The tournament, in its eighth year, is sponsored by the nonprofit School-Business Partnerships of Long Island, and the college, to spur youth interest in science and technology.

"They grow up thinking this [science and technology] is fun and games," Greenwald said. "They don't understand how much they're learning until they look back years later and see how much they did."

Emily Stern, 17, of Plainview, who used to compete in the tournament but was helping keep score Saturday, said the experience "changed my life." She said it led her to plan to study mechanical engineering next year in college.

Hannah Leibowitz, 11, of Dix Hills, cheered on her teammates. She said that when she grows up, "I want to cure something."