Tualatin’s Nerd Herd

Bridgeport Elementary LEGO Robotics Team ends season on high note

By Ed Johnson

The Times, Feb 4, 2010 (2 Reader comments)

Bridgeport Elementary’s First LEGO League team, known as the Nerd Herd, from left to right, Daniel Hoffman, 10; Madi Lowry, 10; Sarah Snippen, 11; Nicholas Oubre, 9; Will Shick, 9, and Megan Talbert,9.

Jaime Valdez / Times Newspapers

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It’s lunchtime at Bridgeport Elementary, and the “Nerd Herd” is hungry.

As they should be. It’s halfway through the school day for the group of fourth- and fifth-graders who make up the school’s First LEGO League team, kindly dubbed with the loving moniker and “nerdy” uniforms by mom and coach Cindy Oubre.

“Have you ever seen ‘Chuck’?” Oubre says of the NBC television show about a geeky spy. “I wanted them to look like that.”

After a quick shoot with a newspaper photographer, the herd sits down to a late lunch – missing recess, again, for the team – and partakes in a speedy interview with a dose of the group’s official food item: Nerds candy.

It seems the Herd has just ended its season of LEGO robotics competition, and it went pretty well. They got fourth place at a local competition after their self-programmed robot performed well on the obstacle course, so they headed to the state competition against 120 other teams. Besides success on the competition side, the group also went and met with the Tualatin City Council and mayor to show them their idea for a new bike trail. The presentation stemmed from the research project portion of the team competition. This year’s topic was transportation.

“We were involved more with the bike side of things,” Megan Talbert, 9, says matter of factly about the group’s project. “We can’t even drive.”

The First LEGO League is part of a national project aimed at getting K-12 students interested and engaged in science and math through competition. During the season, which runs the first couple months of the school year, students build and program a LEGO robot to manage a mini obstacle course.

The adult coach, in this case Cindy Oubre, can only give advice and guidance. Coaches can’t touch the robot themselves or do any programming during the competition season.

Oubre started the team at Bridgeport Elementary two years ago and has seen some success with the students. Oubre is a former electrical engineer turned stay-at-home mom and tireless school volunteer. This is the first year one of her kids actually participated on the team.

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