Rainier Middle School’s rookie robotics teams stood up to the competition.

The school’s Seattle Psycho’s RC team captured the regional champion award and the robot performance award at Des Moines last Saturday. In doing so, the Psychos advance to the state competition this Saturday. The team is one of five squads to reach state out of a regional field of 21.

Rainier Middle School’s other rookie team, Mindstorm GenY, took third in the robot performance category.

Rainier Middle School is part of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League, a global program created to get kids excited about science and technology. FLL uses theme-based challenges to engage kids in research, problem solving and engineering. The cornerstones of the program are its core values, which emphasize the contributions of others, friendly sportsmanship, learning and community involvement.

Teams are supplied the same kits and playing fields to design, build and carry out robotic missions. Teams are scored on how well the robots fulfill time-limited specific missions and how well students explain and present their projects to judges.

The competition includes a 2½-minute robotic challenge, which involves preparing, presenting and executing a selected themed project. This fall, the Rainier crew chose ways to improve pedestrian safety in their community. One team suggested innovative traffic improvements around the school, ideas that have won acclaim from technical experts.