Horizon Middle School’s robotics team, “Spudnik, the Next Generation,” placed first for their project presentation at the FIRST LEGO League robotics competition in Grand Forks in February. This year’s challenge was Nature’s Fury. The team presented about preventing, reducing and recovering from the damages caused by volcanoes.

Team members are Paul Sternhagen, Kaeden Olthoff, Finn Harrison, Joe Eidsness, Jake Cameron, Jonathan Stalberger, Josh Hagen, Max Slicer and Chris Schmitt. Amber From is the team coach, and Matt Craig, MSUM physics professor, is the volunteer coach. They were receognized at the May 12 School Board meeting.

FIRST LEGO League is an international program to get students excited about science and technology and teach them employment and life skills. Students work alongside adult mentors to design, build, and program autonomous robots using LEGO Mindstorms technologies and create an innovative solution to a problem as part of their research project.