Science team doesn’t do so ‘Bad’

A team of children from Newport Coast Elementary placed second Saturday in a daylong, 52-team science tournament.

Team Bad Robot was neck-and-neck with Los Angeles Westside in the 2009 Southern California FIRST Lego League Championship Tournament at Legoland in Carlsbad, following their win at a qualifying tournament at the Discovery Science Center.

Teams from Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, Imperial, and San Bernardino counties competed. The teams were judged on teamwork, project, robotic design, and robotic performance. The judges included scientists, engineers and members of academia.

Bad Robot and Los Angeles Westside were the only teams called back for a second round of judging for both their projects and robotic designs.

Bad Robot was given the second-place Champions Award, which is determined by the combination of teamwork, project, design, and robotic performance, as well as displaying “gracious professionalism” and FIRST Lego League values.

The Newport Coast Bad Robot team was Camellia Edalat, 10; Tyler Chan, 11; Ryan Chan, 10; Maximilian Bui, 11; and Annelise Bui, 10. Bad Robot was one of the youngest winning teams.

The team hopes to compete next year in order to go to the world championship.