Your Town: Flagler County Girl Scouts place first at robotics competition

Over 120 teams, made up of more than 1,200 participants, competed in the Northeast Regional Robotics Championship on Saturday, Feb. 23. Flagler County’s all Girl Scout Team, The Luna-tics, competed in this First Lego League tournament division and won first place for Strategy and Innovation, according to a news release. The Luna-tics were also one of only 11 FLL teams earned bids to compete in the Statewide Tournament being held in April.

The team is comprised of five Flagler County Girl Scouts ages 12-14 who come from four different Flagler County Girl Scout troops and four Flagler County Schools (Indian Trails Middle School, Buddy Taylor Middle School, Wadsworth Elementary and iFlagler).

This is their first year working together on the First Lego League Robotics League. This year the theme is a space related challenge called “Into Orbit.” The participants are judged on their robot game, robot design, a project (which is to come up with an innovative solution to solve a problem faced by astronauts during long duration space travel) and core values.

The team is comprised of Madeline Brinker, Mackinzie Rogan, Alexandria Murray, Madilyn Winternheimer and Kadance (Nickmeyer) Schmidt-Alpers. The coaches are Therese Watson-Murray and Tania R. Schmidt-Alpers.