Psychotic Robotics Heads to State Competition

After Liam Klopfenstein asked four of his friends to join him on Psychotic Robotics, the boys set a goal to make it to the FIRST LEGO League state championship — a lofty goal for the rookie team.

But Klopfenstein, Matthew Crotty, Nick Highman, Brandon Sturgis and Nam Ton, all of Oakton, defied the odds when they won the Division I region tournament at George Mason University on Nov. 20.

Coached by Mark Klopfenstein and Michael Crotty, the Hunters Woods Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences students will compete at the state tournament at James Madison University this weekend. First Lego League is a robotics program that has 9- to 14-year-olds use Lego Mindstorms NXT kits to create autonomous robots they have to program to accomplish certain tasks within a two-and-a-half-minute time frame.

Upon their arrival at the regional event, the boys became nervous seeing the tough competition with interesting robots around them. But it motivated them to work hard to achieve their goal of making it to the state championship.

In addition to the timed competition, teams had to identify a food contamination, develop an innovative solution and present it to the judges. Psychotic Robotics decided to solve the problem of milk becoming spoiled by exposure to heat during its journy from the farm to the store. They created a sticker that attaches to the carton of milk and is printed with ink bubbles that melt when exposes to heat, releasing red ink. To make the sticker change gradually, some of the ink bubbles would be thicker than others.

Competitors were also judged on how well they motivated others to be excited about science and technology, and whether they demonstrated professionalism throughout the competition.

"Even if the Psychotic Robotics team had not won their division, they would have, at least, excelled at one of the core values — having fun!" the boys wrote in a statement to Oakton Patch.