By Chris Cunningham
The Scene staff
The Lego Gryphons are elementary school students during the week, engineers on weekends.
The team of three boys showed up at a Junior FIRST Lego League exposition at Forest Park last weekend with an “Escalator Chair,” a machine made of Legos that carried a figure named “Mr. Pickles” up and down.
It took a while for team members Kian Howe, Jackie Proper and Jackson Diblasi to figure out how to control the gears and chains with a laptop computer.
“It all worked out in the end though,” said Jackie, 9.
The Lego Gryphons was one of 10 teams that participated in the exposition, which was held in the Forest Park cafeteria and hosted by the college. Team members were 6 to 9 years old.
Kian’s father, Jeff Howe, 51, of Ladue, saw it as an opportunity for his son to have fun and develop skills.
“The teamwork is important,” he said. “They aren’t learning how to put Legos together. They’re learning how to work together.”
Junior FIRST teams worked on their Lego machines for a year, typically meeting with coaches once a week. They also made posters with photos and other information.
Exposition rules required teams to consult with senior citizens, who helped them come up with ideas related to concerns of the elderly or what life was like in their youths.
“Our population is aging so much,” Event Coordinator Jill Zuehlke said. “So it’s a real-world problem, because we will have more seniors in this next generation than ever before.”
Team Really built a machine that resembled an electric door on a minivan. They noted that this technology wasn’t available in the old days.
“The hardest part was figuring how to make the spinning motor go side-to-side,” team member Hana Noueriy said.
Janette Coble, 49, was one of many parents who helped their children transport machines to the exposition and socialized with each other. She brought her son, Ethan, another member of Team Really.
“It’s a great life skill to take a big project and break it into small pieces,” Coble said.
The exposition was sponsored by the St. Louis branch of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a national, non-profit organization based in New Hampshire.
The organization also sponsors robotic competitions for high school students. It added the Junior FIRST Lego League for their younger siblings.
“We started a program for the younger set,” Zuhelkie said. “They were building stuff on their own anyway.”
The exposition is non-competitive with each team receiving an award based on its strengths. Awards have names like Dynamic Da Vinci for best artistic displays and Simply Awesome Machines for best simple machines.
The Lego Gryphons won the Little Einsteins award. Team Really won the Presentation Sensation award.
“We try to make the descriptions very positive and self-affirming,” Zuelke said. “Because if you are told you accomplished something, you start to believe in yourself.”