Photo courtesy of Liora Chessin.
Members of the Dash and Dot robotics team from N.E. Miles Jewish Day School pose with their robots.
The N.E. Miles Jewish Day School seventh grade Dash and Dot robotics team, coached by NEMJDS parent Amit Sherman, was named state champions in the Wonder League Robotics Competition for the second year in a row. These students are also in the top 1 percent of teams and have been invited to compete in the international finalist round and the perfect score round for their coding. There were over 5,000 teams in the competition and over 80 in Alabama.
The competition consisted of obstacle course-like challenges through which the students had to program the Wonder Workshop’s Dash and Dot robots. Each challenge was filmed and submitted online to the competition judges. NEMJDS students were already familiar with the Dash and Dot robots because the NEMJDS was an early supporter of the Wonder Workshop. Wonder Workshop’s goal is to teach programming basics through hands-on play with their robots, Dash and Dot. As an early supporter, the school was among the first to receive Dash and Dot and their accessories. As a result, NEMJDS students had the necessary practice and skills to participate and succeed in the competition.
What was especially exciting for this team of students is that after being named state champs in 2016, they set a goal to make it even further in this year’s competition. From day one, the students shared their knowledge and reflections from last year, and as a team, figured out how to improve from the year before. Their growth in their coding, teamwork and creativity since their first time competing is impressive.
– Submitted by Liora Chessin.
