CBA this year has a LEGO-robotics team, and we have been working hard to prepare for this year’s First LEGO League tournament. The team this year has nine students and three coaches, led by CBA mother Anneke Pribis. In our robotics  meetings, we decide what tasks the robots will perform and create robots out of LEGOs to perform those tasks. We also are  creating a posterboard based on research we are doing about our LEGO League topic.

              This year’s First LEGO League’s theme is “Food Factors.” We voted to have beef production as our topic because the majority of the team members love to eat beef. Due to this year’s theme we named our team the Cyber Bacteria Annihilators!

              To research beef production, we visited the Nagimor Farms beef farm in Cobleskill NY, on December 4th. On this farm, cows are grass-fed and the beef is organically produced. For beef to be organically produced, it has to be antibiotic-free, there is no animal by-products in the feed, there is no growth hormones put into the cows, and the slaughtering of animals must be humane. We learned about the beef production process which includes raising the cattle, transported to the slaughterhouse to be butchered, and aged, then packaged to be shipped to the store where it is purchased by consumers. In appreciation for the information the owners gave us, we helped to clear a section of their fences of grape vines and other growth.

                We are working hard to perfect the programming so the robot is able to perform its tasks in competitions. We are also working on our presentation to the judges about the solution we came up with regarding a problem related to food contamination. In our research we found out that corn-fed beef has a 52% chance of being contaminated with drug resistant bacteria including E.Coli, Salmonella, or Staph Aureus. Our solution is to get more people to buy grass-fed beef because it’s healthier and is a lot less likely be contaminated. We are promoting the healthful benefits of grass-fed beef by developing a website to let people know why they should buy this type of beef even though it costs more than corn-fed beef. Our website we’re developing for this project is https://sites.google.com/site/cbaalbanyrobotics/home/cow-pooling. At this website, visitors will read about grass-fed beef and eventually be able to buy a portion of an entire cow with other people in their area. With more people purchasing grass-fed beef, we expect the price to go down so even more people will buy it.

         Our first tournament will be held in Poughkeepsie, NY on February 11th. We will be competing against other schools in New York State for best “Food Factors” presentation and best scores in LEGO robotics missions.  Please come and cheer us on (and buy grass-fed beef)!