Parsippany Boys Head to State Tournament for Robotics Lego League

As the Parsippany Hills Vikings head to the state finals for football, a team of six boys—three from Parsippany—are heading to the state competition for FLL—First Lego League.

They won the regional championship this past Saturday, said Deepa Gaitonde, whose 4th grade son, Sohum, attends Littleton and is one of the six on the team.

“This was the first time they ever participated,” said Deepa Gaitonde. “They came up with their name "Bolting Building Ninjas" and also their logo.”

Here are the members of Bolting Building Ninjas:

• Sohum Gaitonde, (4th grade) at Littleton Elementary School, Parsippany
• Rishi Patel, (4th Grade) at Shongum School , Randolph
• Udayan Vashisth, (5th grade) at Intervale Elementary School, Parsippany
• Ankush Trivedi, (5th grade) at Intervale Elementary School , Parsippany
• Kunal Kumar, (5th grade) at Lakeview Elementary School, Denville
• Armaan Rochlani, (5th grade) at Riker Hill Elementary, Livingston

In early fall, FLL releases a challenge based on a real-world scientific topic and each challenge has three parts: the Robot Game, the Project and the FLL Core Values, according to FLL. Teams can have up to 10 kids  with one adult coach and they program “an autonomous robot to score points on a themed playing field (Robot Game), develop a solution to a problem they have identified (Project), all guided by the FLL Core Values,” according to FLL

The Bolting Building Ninjas used their ideas and they were aided by young mentors Shefali Kumar and Esha Jain as well as parent coaches Saurabh Kumar and Prasad Gaitonde, said Gaitonde. The state competition is in Flanders on Dec 14.