Mesquite Elementary School robotics team advances

By SANDY MONTOYA, SENIOR PUBLICATIONS EDITOR, WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE

For the Bulletin

The Mesquite Elementary Sharks in the Gadsden Independent School District were one of eight teams from the Las Cruces area advancing to the 2017 FIRST LEGO® League (FLL) HYDRO DYNAMICSSM New Mexico Region Championship following the November FLL Qualifier at Oñate High School. The championship event is Feb. 10 at Menaul School in Albuquerque.

Coached by Russell Husson-Matter, a secondyear special education teacher at Mesquite Elementary School, the team practices after school on Mondays and Wednesdays, and even comes in on Saturdays, working to hone their robot game skills in advance of the competition.

Not only is the goal of an FLL competition to have fun, but for students to learn leadership skills and how to function in a team, and learn the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills they need to make the robots work.

FIRST LEGO® League challenges kids to think like scientists and engineers. During the build season, each team chose a real-world problem to solve in the project competition. This

SEE ROBOTICS, PAGE 19

From left: Alexandra Rodriguez,Teacher/Coach Russell Husson-Matter, Melanie Torres, Kevin Kirkpatrick,Jaiden Arroyo, David Torres and Team Captain Emily Torres. (Team member Matthew Tellez is not pictured).

COURTESY PHOTOS

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