Town foursome are FIRST Lego League TN champs
That team, made up of seventh-grader Milo Roberts, 12; sixth-grader Wyatt Walker, 12; and seventh-graders Josiah York, 13, and Patrick Patterson, 13, won the state FIRST Lego League competitions.
“FIRST has a couple of different programs,” said Megan Roberts, mother of Milo Roberts and a co-coach. “They do FIRST Robotics Competition at (Aerospace Robotics Competition) high school level. Then the middle school level is FIRST Lego League.
“And, they just went all the way up the ranks,” she added. “We got a local regional (competition) in December (2024 in Jefferson Middle School in Oak Ridge) and we did well there.”
Roberts said the team earned second place regionally, but still was able to compete at the state level.
“That’s what motivated them,” she said about team members elevating their performance. “They saw exactly where they could improve and they worked really hard to improve.”
The team competed in February in the state event at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville and won the championship, giving them a bid to compete at the world competition level, which was April 16 through April 19 in Houston, ranking 70th place.
“It was a lot bigger competition,” Roberts said. “The world competition took the top 160 teams worldwide. There’re 70 countries that they pulled from. So, just being among the 160 teams worldwide was an incredible honor ... we were thrilled to be a part of it.”
As for hybrid schools, Roberts explained those allow students to attend only two or three days a week — and are homeschooled the rest.
