Pololu laser-cut parts used by middle school team at the FIRST LEGO League championships

Last week, 7th-grade robotics team ‘Lightning Strikes Twice!’ (LS2!) from Aspen Middle School in Colorado joined 160 teams from 66 countries to compete in the FIRST LEGO League Challenge World Festival held in Houston, Texas. It was their first time qualifying after winning multiple first-place awards at an event in Fort Collins, Colorado last November, and second place at the Colorado State Championship in December.

LS2! designed an autonomous turtle robot to conduct coral reef research, which uses LEGO electronics and pieces to control the flipper mechanism. Pololu supported the team with laser-cut plywood pieces for mounting the paddles and acrylic pieces for the tail and watertight body with gasketed openings.

Turtle robot SHELTN2 submerged in a swimming pool.

Working with Pololu was great. The parts arrived quickly and were very well packed. I suggested the students leave 3 mm of clearance around the LEGO structure to account for tolerance in the laser cutting and assembly but the parts were very accurate so we could have made it tighter. We used a combination of Weld-On 4 and 16 to glue the acrylic. The most challenging part was designing for the rubber shift boots we used to seal the joints while allowing movement. SHELTN’s total weight was approximately 7 kg plus 6 kg of ballast to achieve neutral buoyancy.

- William Gilmore, Mentor, Lightning Strikes Twice!

You can read more about the FIRST Championship in Houston in this FIRST press release, and visit the FIRST LEGO League blog for a full list of challenge and division award recipients.

We’re proud that parts from our Custom Laser Cutting Service helped LS2! bring their design to life and excel through their competition. Congrats to Lightning Strikes Twice! on all of their achievements!

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