The Miami Valley School lego league team is building up to something great, it seems, following big wins in December.

Technonati, the FIRST LEGO League robotics team, competed at a regional competition at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, where they took home finished 2nd out of 12 teams and will advance to the Dayton District Championship.

In addition to the competition win, the team also took home the Core Values trophy, which is an award for the team that demonstrated the best growth and performance as a team, as well as best exemplifying the spirit of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology).

The team is comprised of 10 7th and 8th graders and has been working all year to prepare for this tournament. The team not only built, but also programmed a robot to navigate and complete a specific mission.

Additionally, teams were asked to identify an issue with a public or private building or space in their community, and then to research and develop a solution.

In true MVS fashion, the students looked to the classroom as an opportunity to create “Design-for-Learning” classrooms as a model to stimulate hands-on, immersive learning.

DfL classrooms would apply scientifically-proven principles to create classroom spaces that enhance student learning and teacher teaching. Using some of the nontraditional Miami Valley School classrooms as an example, Technonati developed model classrooms to stimulate an ideal, immersive education.

The students will move on to compete at the District Championship at Wright State University on January 18th and 19th, where they will hope to use their unique problem-solving skills to continue earning high honors.