5th Grade STEAM Robotics Team

Fort Payne City Schools

Principal, Mrs. Jennifer List

Superintendent, Mr. Brian Jett

Little Ridge Intermediate School's (LRIS) 5th Grade Robotics Team, Ultimate Current, embodied the quote “the kids are not building the robots, the program used robots to build the kids.”  LRIS used Ultimate Current and built passion in students for lifelong learning and a fearlessness to tackle challenges. The project-based robotics curriculum provided computational thinking skills, real world problems, hands on learning, and teamwork with core values to achieve student goals. The Ultimate Current team competed in competitions focused on real world challenges incorporating engineering, business, and presentation skills. Students competed in four areas: innovative project, robot game, robot design presentation, and teamwork challenge. The teams were challenged to find a problem that involved a specific subject matter relevant to current societal issues. After defining and researching a problem, the team was tasked to create prototypes and test their solution. The team prepared a presentation to share their innovative solution and responded to questioning by technology judges. At the competitions, students competed in an autonomous robot challenge with a Spike Prime robot. Last year’s 5th grade team, Ultimate Current, qualified at the first-round competition to reach the state tournament. The team won the Alabama State Championship and went on to compete in the Greece Invitational against one hundred teams from around the world.