 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Hi, I'm Jay Fidel. It's four o'clock. We're dealing with the first regular League State Championship here on, what is it, Think Tech Talks? Okay, Think Tech Talks with Maria Tomei. Talk Tech and Think Tech. Now, her primary occupational identity these days, or at least one of her many occupational identities these days, is the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, where she is the chair of the working group on transportation. Yes. And somehow transportation and the Lego League are connected. I might, in introducing her, I might also say that some people refer to her as the Lego Lady. Others have awarded her the Lego Head Mom of the Year Award. We have her among us right now. Welcome to the show, Maria. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on the show. Maria, we talk about news. We like news. So very recently, there was the first Lego League State Championship, where kids were challenged to think like scientists and engineers. We need to know what happened. It was recent. Yeah, last Saturday. You know, a couple of times we've come and we've talked about this Lego League coming up. We're going to have district tournaments, and then you have the top teams from district tournaments all come together in the state championship. That was last Saturday. We had it. It was fun. It was successful. It was awesome. We have a million pictures, but not enough time for a million. I wonder about six or seven. Where was it? It was at the Blaisdell. Ah, wow. That's crowded stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had about a thousand people there because these are teams of 10 students, and then they have two coaches, and they have a team scout, and they've got parents and mentors, and you've got judges, and you've got referees, and you've got also the junior first Lego League. Kids were there. You know, a whole bunch of kids that are younger than nine, six to nine is the junior first Lego League. They had all their exhibits set up. Then you had the first Lego League 42 teams of up to 10 kids per team. It was great. It was noisy. And the music blaring, they had the cheering and the times going on. I can sense the enthusiasm now for you. But you know what? Let's pull back from the clip for just one minute. What's a Lego? What? What's a Lego? You're a little close to this. Okay, so it started off, I think it was invented in the early 1900s or something. Lego, I guess, in Danish means let's play, and they were little blocks. You know, when you play with blocks, they fall apart, right? You make a stack, and it falls over. So he put little pegs on them, and they would stick together. And so now they're plastic blocks. We had them when we were kids, a little plastic blocks. So that's what people think of when they think of Lego. It's the iconic brick, right? But you need wheels for your cars. Those are fun. Transportation working group, right? So you've got wheels, you've got axles, you've got connectors and beams, and now you've got a little programmable robot control. It's called the brick. And you program it on your computer, and it has four motors that connect to it and three sensors that connect to it. And so you can get this thing to move, and you can build attachments. You build the body, you build the attachments, and it can go do stuff. So that Lego is more than just bricks. Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention, apologies. Maria is an engineer. Can you tell? Can anybody tell? If you can tell, raise your hand. I am. Yeah. So anyway, that's what the Legos are. And when you build these robots, these little robots to do these missions, then you can have a competition. You can have a bunch of kids get together and do this stuff, make the robot do things. But what are you teaching them? Everything. Yeah. So every year there's a topic. An engineering related, it gets even more engineering-ish than that. There's a topic every year. This year it was water. So civil engineering, water and wastewater. How do we find, how do we distribute, how do we treat dispose of water? And so not only do they have to learn how to build the robot and program the robot, they have to do a research project together and do a presentation, five minutes presentation on the topic of not only how Hawaii does its water finding and delivery and processing, but how it could be improved. They have to invent something. It's not necessarily a technology that they invent. They can improve a process. They can improve a law. That should appeal to the folks who, yeah, the policy. Whether it's a technology, a policy or even an approach, society, if we all did X. And sometimes the kids actually institute changes in their schools. Some of the teams actually design things that have commercial application and they get patents eventually. So this is not just a Hawaii thing. It's not just U.S. It's international. So the international competition is going to be in Texas April 2018. So Hawaii will send one team to that. So going back, so how do I get involved if I'm a kid in school? Is this to rigour? I mean, do I have to sign up or is it optional? How do I sign up and how do I get into the team? Most of the teams are affiliated with schools. Very often it's an after-school program or part of the gifted and talented class or sometimes it's like a boy scout or girl scout troop or something like that. Or even the homeschool teams. Oh, really? Yeah. Charter schools. Yes. Oh, yeah. We had a couple of charter schools on there, too. So whoever it is who says, this is awesome and actually gets permission with the school or whoever and you pull together the kids. And the team is from the school. In other words, one team is going to be across schools. See, there's no requirement. There are very few requirements as to how you get your team members. So it can have kids from one school and maybe even siblings or whatever. As long as they're within the age range, it's fine. Okay, so I signed up. But you need a coach. You need two coaches. Okay, that's what I was getting at. So I sign up. I go down. I'm in the team. I'm sitting around in a circle in the school somewhere or wherever. And so we begin. And now we begin. So what do I do as a kid member of the team? Well, the first thing is to understand that it's not just building with the Lego bricks. You know, so you get to see the robot. Some of them have actually played with this before. And they've got summer school classes on this. And so, you know, some are familiar. And then you go over the topic. Say, hey guys, the topic this year is water. How does the way in some of them go on field trips? Really? They watch videos of experts. They actually sometimes have experts come to the classroom or come to the after school program or on weekends or whatever. And then they also have the core values, which is a lot of teamwork. You're practicing how to communicate. All the good things. How to make decisions. You know, you may have a difference of opinion. Very often we expect the kids to just look to the adult to make the decision. Not this time. No. The adult guides them in figuring out how they're going to make the decision. Making the decision and sticking to it. Who are the mentors? Are they science teachers? They can be. Engineers, for example? Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Are they you? I have been, especially when it was energy topic. Of course. That would fit. Yeah. Now, you're not on the teams because your level of enthusiasm was sort of suggest you're a member of the team. I started. I'm sorry. No. I started as a coach of a team. Well, first I was actually asked to judge some energy stuff back at the energy year. And then I was like, this is too cool. And I had a kid of the appropriate age who loved Legos. And we said, hey, let's get a team together at your school. And so we started a team there. And so now through the years I've had various roles. And this year I was coordinating. This isn't your first year. Coordinating district tournaments. Oh no. This is many years already. This is incorporated in your whole life plan already. It's really interfering with the housework. That's terrific. Yeah. Why? Yeah. Why? Why? Well, it resonates, I think. Not just playing with Legos, which you're playful at times, but also the whole idea of it's not just what you do. It's not getting the right answer or building the thing efficiently or getting it to work. It's working with people and doing the right thing in the right way for the right reason. And even though it's pain in the neck, I don't know if I can say that. But the project is kind of a pain in the neck sometimes when you want to be working on the robot. But that's where the kids are imagining and realizing that they're part of the solution. They're learning about real stuff. And they are actually imagining how it could be improved. And in some cases they are working with the experts and having that feedback from folks in the community. And so they're imagining themselves as not only engineers, but project managers, fundraisers. I mean, you've got to raise funds for the kit or the travel or sometimes the t-shirts or the snacks. There is a certain need for snacks. So they all have different roles and they're learning to appreciate that it takes a team working together to be successful. So I really enjoy that. At the end of the day it's also about confidence because I firmly believe that kids don't necessarily come into the room confident. And if you give them an environment where they can appreciate themselves and their own ability to collaborate, to create, all that, then they become confident. Once they become confident, well then the world is their oyster, then they can venture forward and win not only in contests like this, but in life in general. So let's look at some of the confidence on their faces. You've got some pictures. I'd like you to show some pictures. Okay, well we had a really limited amount of time and space for pictures. So I got one of the junior first Lego leaguers. It's colorful. So as you can see, they build something and you can see the poster board in the back where they talk about what they learned and what they built and their team and how they do their teamwork. Look at how completely focused she is. And it's open to the public to see these exhibits. And so the junior first Lego league exhibits were up in the morning. So this is one of our junior first Lego leaguers. Okay. And then later, meanwhile, the older kids, these are the older kids, these are 9-14 years old, and they in the morning had been in judging rooms talking about their projects. And that's not open to the public but to the judges and team members. But then after that is over, we brought everybody together and this is one of the few shots we have because they tend to move around a lot doing all their different activities. So this was one at the end waiting for the assembly and you can kind of see. I noticed that some of them have red and blue and Greek. Those are team shirts. And we also had some games set up. We actually had the Lego users group where there's a table, and we didn't have room for that picture, but there's a table where they show the stuff that the Lego users group builds and they had fun with that. And there's also these, a large chess board and there's a tic-tac-toe game. And so it fills in some of the gaps between the activities for the kids and it's a good opportunity for them to be playing together while they're waiting for the results and whatnot. And this is a shot of them putting their robot in the base. So when you have the competition that's open to the public, okay, you schedule each team and they bring their robot. Two team members are allowed at the table. The table is four feet by eight feet long but you can only touch the robot in that corner that's called base. And so you see those two kids position. What happens to the other, what, eight kids? They're in the back cheering or watching very intensely. They should be into this effort though. This is their project as much as it is these two projects. And there are three rounds. So they'll go and for two and a half minutes the robot will do its, get its points and then we'll rotate through all the teams and then they'll come back and on a different table and whatnot they will have another chance. And so two different team members sometimes might come up. It depends how the team decides, once again, deciding who's gonna run it. Now this view of these kids right here, okay, this is the moment where somebody is judging them. No, no. This is, the robot gets the points it gets. So we have referees for this part. So a matrix then of rating points on this characteristic of that. Sort of, so at this part they have, we have referees and there's a list of missions and how many points each one is worth. So who determines the number of points? So the robot, well that's all determined ahead of time. That's the same for everybody. So the missions are all the same, the tables on the board are all the same. The list of points per mission. So it's easy to judge, very objective, judging. Yeah, so you have your referees watching what the robot does. In some of the missions it's like, you have to put the water, I brought the flower last time and put the water and the flower in it. I remember that. So you have to see that it was placed there and so some of it you watch to make sure that the actual action happens. If the robot gets stuck or confused. It needs to be rescued. Robots get confused too. Yes, it is possible for the team member to actually pick it up and bring it back to base. But they get a little penalty, a couple points for that. And so the refs are watching all this. And after the two and a half minutes which seems really long when you're in a competition environment they'll score what's on the board. What got done, what didn't get done. The second pipe moved was the new pipe put in its place. Did you put the sludge in by the flower beds? Did you all extinguish the fire? There's a house that was on fire. Well, not literally. Conceptual house. Exactly. You get points for that. There's a little lever on the fire hydrant that if the robot pushes it you get the points for that. You may wonder what we're talking about. We had another show on this a few weeks ago and we talked about in fact we had the flower here. And we can see the flower. Made out of Legos. Made out of Legos, it was impressive. And if you want to watch that show you can go on thinktecawai.com or you can go on youtube.com thinktecawai and you can look for Maria Tomé's name and Legos and you'll probably find it right away so you can compare that show and this show to that show and see the continuum of these events at the first Lego League State Championships. We are going to take a short break, Maria. I know we'd like to go. When we come back, I'll talk about what happens to the winners. We can show some pictures. We'll be right back. You'll see, I promise. He promises too. Time for fun and responsibility. Choose the GT. Captain of our team. It's the GT. For every game day, assign a designated driver. I'm going to the game and it's going to be great. Early arrive and for a little tailgate. I usually drink but won't be drinking today because I'm the designated driver and that's okay. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line keeps him from drinking too much so he can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way because it's all about having fun on game day. I'm the guy you want to be. I'm the guy, say good morning. I'm the guy with the H2O and I'm the guy that says, let's go. Hi. Yeah, we're back. We're live with Maria Tomei and she is the lady, a Lego lady and the winner of the, wait. Oh, we're going to see. Mom of the Year Award. My grand toys. Undescribed. Unidentified. Okay, so first, let's talk about some more photos, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. More photos are going to see these kids and how engaged and focused they are and try to figure out what's happening to them. So this is another, you know, another shot of a team. They're obviously very engaged. You ask, what about the other kids? Well, the two at the table are the ones running the robot and swapping out the attachments and everybody behind is hoping and watching and either celebrating or not, you know, every time. You can hear the cheers. Some things get huge cheers. You can see the cheers here. You can hear the meme as though it's just a photograph. Yeah, so then there's another picture of the next one. Yeah, that apparently went well, whatever it was the robot did. You know how it went well. I'm thinking it did something. Yeah. Boy, they're excited. Yeah, and we have lots of shots of the teams cheering and excited or stressed, you know, whatever. Focused, very focused. Focused. Yes. I picked this one because these folks you are going to see again in another picture. Too much. In a moment. So the next picture. So they actually won the champions award. This was the iconic alert squad. Yeah, Sacred Hearts Academy. And they were so excited because it's the last award. I mean, we have a whole bunch of awards for projects and core values and inspiration and teamwork and gracious professionalism and research and innovative solution and presentation and robot programming and strategy, all this. So you can get a word for any one of those characteristics. Yeah, yeah. And so what happens is the champions award team, basically they don't hear their name. They don't come up for any of the other awards, right? And so they're probably a little bit like, oh, draft, you know. And then at the end of that champions award and there it is. Oh, wow, fabulous. And so that's the trophy. The trophy is made of Legos. Yeah. Yeah, as appropriately. The Hawaiian Electric is one of the sponsors program. Yeah, they're the title sponsor. Good for them. Yeah. Yeah. Very impressive. I have to say that when you excite kids that way, you can feel their brain cells moving. You can feel them learning, absorbing and developing confidence I mentioned. This is so important to develop a group of super kids. I always felt that Hawaii was possible. Oh, yeah. Not easy but possible to develop our kids into super kids. That's what I see in these photos, Maria. Yeah. And if you watch them go on to the national competitions and the other regional competitions, Hawaii kids, Hawaii teams. You know, you got to give the coaches credit too. And the families, very supportive. Yeah. You know, the teachers, the principals. You know, sometimes the principals are down there with the teams. It should be. Yeah. I want that. I want to support. So how many people won? What kinds of characteristics were prevailed? And where does it go after they win? What happens to them? Okay. Well, first they are very happy. Sure, parties everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And their schools, you know, they share it with their families and their schools. Right? Yeah. And so there are three teams from Hawaii that are going to go and represent Hawaii in other events. So the Team 6002 Iconic Alert Squad Sacred Hearts Academy will be going to Houston in April 2018 and competing at that first championship. 2018 first championship. Who pays for the trip? You know, I don't know. Sorry. Probably sponsors maybe. Yeah. But we may at some future show be able to go and talk to them and get all this information. Yeah, we've got to do that. What do they need to succeed there? Yeah. Can Hawaii help them? So what happens when they go to Houston? What happens? Well, it's similar to the way they have it set up here. They have a project presentation. They're going to explain how they design their robot, the strategy they use, the mechanical design, the programming. And they're going to have teamwork activities where they can show how well they can work together and make their decisions as a team. They present to judges yet again. Yes. Yes. And it's not just the two of them. It's more than two of them. Yeah. Or the team would say 10, whatever it is. Yeah, well, I think this particular team, I think, has five members. Mm-hmm. And so they're, you know, it's the same team going to go up and present to the judges. But it's the same set up. It's a small group. I think there are three, two or three judges. And they're competing against other people in the country. Yep. Far away places and all that. And then at the end of the day, you know, and then they also have the robot competition, which is the same game board and the same, you know, they can update their robot design if they want. They can, you know, improve the programming and the consistency. And they've got a lot of time. April's, you know, a ways away. Yeah. So I'm sure they're going to continue to be working on it. What do they do between now and April? Well, they work on their project. They work on the robot thing. They're already won. What do they need to do? Oh, you know, that's the beauty of an open-ended quest like this. Yeah. You can always get better. You always get better. Yeah. You refine. You refine it. Yeah. You do research on your project and your idea. And really slick at it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, instead of a concept, it becomes more real. Yeah. Yeah. So we can talk to them more about, although, there is another competition. So maybe having it too public. Okay, well, let's talk to a bunch of those kids. Yeah. Yeah. Because we have, yeah. The roar of the grease paint and the smell of the crowd, whatever it is, and find out what drives them. There you go. And where they are, the continuum of their education is really fabulous. So that's Houston. There's also Legoland in California in May. This is a place by that name? Yeah. Okay. Sorry. You've never heard of Legoland? No, never have. Oh, dear. I've been on the planet for a few years now, but I've never heard of Legoland. Yeah. Well, it's near Disneyland. They're in the California one. It's near Disneyland. They've got a Legoland in Denmark. Okay. I think they have one somewhere else, too. What's it like? It's a city estate. I'm used to the thought. What is it? It's like Disneyland. Except for, you know, it's really, especially the California one, they've got rides, a lot of, you know, rides, and they have Lego used to build the, you know, you have the Safari. You've got an elephant made out of Lego. You've got a moving dragon made out of Legos, right? It's very colorful, very fun. Yeah, yeah. So they go there and that's where the competition is, at least for this part of it. Yeah. I'm not sure what part of Legoland is devoted to this or if it's something near Legoland. Seems appropriate. But it's a general vicinity. Are you going to go with them? No. No, no. I'm not on the team. I'm just, you know, we just do the work here. Do you have a skin in the game on this? Are you kids involved in the competition? Not anymore. Not anymore. You mean you do it as a, this is like the car where you turn off the ignition and it keeps on going. Sort of. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, this is a resident, the resident frequency thing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm impressed. You know, really, I mean, my level of enthusiasm is huge. Well, I haven't, there's a whole list of things I haven't done yet. I haven't perfected the Lego lays. You know? Kessica sa. So anyway. What is that? You can make a lay out of Lego. Exactly. There are about six different ways you can make the lays out of the Legos and I'm still working on it. So it looked like flowers. Yeah. And the third, okay, so the second, I didn't say what team, so that's a Punahou team going to the Legoland thing in May. Okay. And then the third one. These are the winners now. Yeah. To participate, to represent Hawaii at these events. They must be ecstatic. This just happened. Yeah. Last week, Saturday. Okay. And so the final one, first Lego league, Razorback Invitational, May 17th to 20th, 2018. Is a team from Holomua Elementary School? Elementary School. Yeah. Well, yeah. This is from fourth through eighth grade, generally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got the Elementary Elementary School. Do you have an advantage if you're older? I mean, do you have a handicap on like the robot performance thing? I mean, if you've been building and programming robots for more years, maybe, but if you have an innovative design, you know, and if you do a project presentation and you work together well, you know, the younger ones can compete with the old, the older ones. No problem. Yeah. So, so they go to these various, sounds like there's not one single point of national competition, but multiple points. Is that what it is? Well, those are Invitational's, you know, so the Houston one is the official. That's the official national competition. Yeah, first leg only. Okay, suppose our kids go there and they win. What happens? I don't know. You get anointed? Oh, I'm sure they get Legos for Christmas. I'm sure they do. Isn't that the ultimate? Yeah, the ultimate, I suppose. It's just the guy doing the new ball Legoland. Yeah. So, I mean, the winner is now, you mentioned earlier, I remember this, that it's not just national, it's international. Yeah, right. So, if they win in, where was it, Houston? Yep. They could considerably go on to the next level. No, I think that's it. That's it. That's the end of this year. See, because that's going to be April. Yeah. And the new challenge is going to be announced in the next August or September. So, this keeps on going every year. Yeah, and the topic changes. So, next year's. Does it change? It's just the same every year. I mean, I know the subject changes, but the nature of the competition changes. Not really. I mean, some years, the missions, you know, you're looking at what your robot is expected to accomplish and thinking, they want us to do what? How are we going to do it? They put these obstacles in front of your robot. You're like, okay, well, you know, it's a really tight turn, and then you have to kind of go over this thing and you're supposed to be carrying something that's not going to fall. You know, I mean, they really do make it challenging. More technology. Yeah. More challenging. They have some easy ones, some hard ones, and some that just kind of waste time for the teams that are showing off that they can do everything. Last question. Yeah. When these kids go, how does it change their lives? If at all, how does it change their lives? We're going to write that down. We're going to do it. You're going to bring the team or teams in. We're going to talk to them. We're going to see their bright eyes and their focus. I'm really going to enjoy that. And it's even relevant to the teams who came to Oahu from Neighbor Islands. Yeah. I mean, they traveled. They traveled for a competition. They prevailed. They won. They brought back trophies and knowledge and, you know, the enthusiasm and the confidence. Super kids. It's great. It's great. Super kids. Thank you so, so much for this. Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show. It's a funny thing to say. Well, thank you very much. You got to come back with the kids. Yes. Aloha. Thanks.