The Nano Brainiacs from the J-STEM Academy made their first venture into the First Lego League competition and came away with a trophy and an invitation to a second round of competition.

J-STEM, the Judson Independent School Districts science, technology, engineering and mathematics academy, is in its first year of existence on the Judson Middle School campus and chose to enter the First Lego League robotics competition.

Nano Brainiacs coach Joseph Jacobson brought a team of eight sixth-graders to the Feb. 7 competition at Rolling Meadows Elementary School, as Judson played host to a qualifying tournament for the first time.

Teams advance from a qualifying round to a regional event before advancing to the Alamo Regions fifth annual championships, set for March 11-14 and is being sponsored by Rackspace Hosting.

Jacobsons Nano Brainiacs walked away from the qualifier with the Best Innovation Trophy for its efforts in the four-part event, which included a Lego robotics table-top competition, a problem-solving project, a programming demonstration, and a design explanation and analysis session.

The Nano Brainiacs created an innovative way of learning Spanish that immersed the learner into a dynamic way of practicing and reinforcing the language.

Jacobson said J-STEM sent two teams. His team was composed of eight members who learned all required tasks, but learned to specialize as well.

Our team, were a diverse group, Jacobson said. Everybody has a pivotal role. I dont have just one key driver, everybody has to be a driver, and change roles on a dime. I make sure that on each round, were using two different programmers each time, so everybody gets an opportunity.

Nano Brainiac members Jessica Cavazos, Kiara Martinez and Isabella Avellanet discussed their experiences in early qualifying rounds, as each team gets three rounds to accumulate as many points as possible in the table-top competition.

Were going to try to do the same tasks again. They are going to try to do the door, to make sure it works, Martinez said. At first, it wasnt going very well, but the second time, we felt very confident and did very well.

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Students turn Legos into robots