By Nathan Duke
Little Neck’s MS 67 won one of four top prizes at a citywide Lego robotics competition during which it faced off against a total of 80 schools from across the five boroughs.
Eight students, ages 9 to 14 in the school’s seventh- and eighth-grades, took part in the “Smart Move” event held by the First Lego League at Manhattan’s Jacob Javitz Convention Center Sunday. The group took first place in the research presentation category.
“They were so happy,” said Ruta Dave, the mathematics and robotics teacher at MS 67 who led the students to victory. “We worked very hard. They gave up their lunch period every day to work on this.”
The students presented a detailed research project on transportation.
“They described traffic patterns,” Dave said. “They showed how to reduce traffic and studied computers and satellites. They devised a model and presented it to the MTA.”
The other top three categories at the competition included robot performance, teamwork and robot design. The event drew 80 teams from schools across the city.
MS 67, at 51-60 Marathon Pkwy. in Little Neck, competed for its third year in the program. In January, the students won all four top awards at a Queens qualifying tournament at Long Island City’s Aviation High School.
The school is currently displaying the trophy won by its team at the Lego competition. Students on the team were Bryan Tan, Harrison Lu, Taranwir Waraich, Jung Hur, Robert Ruzic, Justin Goevara, Brandon Lei and Thomas Leung.
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e-mail at nduke@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
