Middle-School Robotics Team Going To State Championship

The Notre Dame Marist Academy "Yellow Jackets" team, which competes in the FIRST LEGO League for robotics, has qualified for the FLL Michigan Championship tournament held Dec. 14 at Carman-Ainsworth Middle School in Flint.

Notre Dame’s FLL robotics team pose with their hard-earned trophy Saturday in Freeland, Mich.

Saturday's qualifying competition, which the Yellow Jackets won, was held in Freeland, Mich., and included a total of 31 teams from various counties in Michigan. The topic for this year's competition was "Nature's Fury." It was selected by FLL to encourage students to learn about the impact and causes of natural disasters as well as how to prepare, respond and recover from natural disasters.

According to Veeresh Nama, the coach of the Yellow Jackets, the team came up with an innovative idea to develop a patch that people can wear during the natural disasters to help first responders to locate and help the survivors quickly. "Their project presentation and core-values teamwork exercise received the highest possible grade and they were commended by all the judges for their innovative idea and demonstrated team work," he added.

The Notre Dame team included Arjun Anand, Kevin Cragg, Dawson Hubbard, Cooper Isham, Vincent Larsson, Jonathan Raju, Ethan Sivasubramaiam, Matthew Wood and Zachary Wojcik.

Congratulations to all team members and special thanks to Coach Siva, Mrs. Cragg, Mr. Stouffer, Mr. Outman and Perry Outman (NDP sophomore) for their help throughout the season so far.

Follow Notre Dame at @NDPMA.

The Yellow Jackets banner is proudly hoisted at the FLL Michigan Championship qualifying tournament held Dec. 7.

About FIRST LEGO League
FIRST LEGO League is a robotics program for 9 to 16 year olds (9 to 14 in US/CAN/MEX), which is designed to get children excited about science and technology — and teach them valuable employment and life skills. FLL can be used in a classroom setting but is not solely designed for this purpose. Teams, composed of up to ten students with at least one adult coach, can also be associated with a pre-existing club or organization, homeschooled, or just be a group of friends who wish to do something awesome. – See more at: http://www.firstlegoleague.org/mission/support#sthash.hERkvpSD.dpuf

About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy

Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.