Ribbots Team Information

The Ribbots are a Robotics team from Cottage Grove, MN and are a part of FIRST® Lego® League Challenge. Our team is comprised of students in 4th-8th grade, high school mentors, and volunteer coaches. We are an independent team with nonprofit status through our fiscal sponsors, Hack Club.

The Ribbots had a successful rookie season (2022-2023). The team won the Core Value awards at their regional competition. In addition, the team qualified to the MN State Championships where they won the innovation project model award. The team was invited to compete in the 2023 Western Edge Invitational in Long Beach California along with 80 teams from around the world. The team competed well and gained significant experience.

The team continued it's success in the 2023-2024 season. The Ribbots won the Champions Award (1st place) and Top Robot Game Performance Score at the Woodbury Regional, which earned them an automatic berth to the 2024 MN State Championships. At the MN State Championships, they placed 11th for their robot game score. The received callbacks (top 7 teams) for programming, creative innovation presentation, and for their innovation project idea. They received a Judges' award for recognizing their impacts and logistical details in their innovation project and robot design presentations. Based on their performance results, they were invited to represent Minnesota at the American Robotics Open Invitational in New Jersey, along with 60 other high-performance teams from across the US. The Ribbots were partnered with a team from Pennsylvania as an alliance and their alliance was the runner up (finalist) for winning the Lightning Round robotics game.

The Ribbots just wrapped up their 2024-2025 Submerged season. This season the Ribbots designed, built, and tested a motorized water toolbox that was created to assist with sea animal rescues. Their motorized toolbox operates as an unmanned surface vehicle, and they named it the "Aqua Assistant". Their invention was widely accepted and valued by multiple stranding and sea animal rescue groups across the US. For their competition season, the Ribbots won the Robot Performance and Robot Design awards at their Regional competition. They then advanced to Sectionals winning the Innovation Project award. They wrapped up their competition season, winning 1st place at the MN State Championships for the Innovation Project! During the post season, the team has been invited by some of the rescue organizations to come out and test their prototype in the ocean alongside a rescue team!! We anticipate making a trip to the ocean in June to conduct this testing and to donate our prototype to a rescue team.

Team Motto: "Just Keep Swimming"

Como Zoo

Ribbots took a field trip to Como Zoo to learn more about some of the sea animals and problems they face. We learned that pollution is destorying the coral habitats.

About FIRST® Lego® League

FIRST® is a robotics program focused on the Core Values of innovation, impact, fun, discovery, teamwork, and inclusion. During the season, the students design, build, and program a robot that competes on a game table to score points by completing various missions. The students also complete and present an innovation project where they identify a real-world problem and develop a solution.

MN State Tournament (2023)

Western Edge Alliance with Teams from MN, Switzerland, and New Jersey

Team Building at an Escape Room

Team Pit Table for the 2023 Regionals

MN State Championships (2024)

2024 MN State Robot Game

2024 AROC Lightning Round Finalist

MN State Championship (2025)

2024-2025 Submerged Season

Robot Game and Design:

The Ribbots have a brand new robot that is our first attempt at slip on attachments. We are excited to add this feature to make our time in bases shorter. The robot features a color and distance sensor this season. We have named our robot "Trooper" after a dolphin the team has symbolically adopted this season. Our primary goal with the robot is to use as many passive attachments as possible to help make our missions more reliable. We learned some new codes this season along with learning to group codes with My Blocks. The maximum point robot game score has improved over the season from 310 points at Regionals to 350 points for State.

Innovation Project:

The Ribbots started their journey for the project learning about how plastics can harm sea animals after attending the POP for a Porpoise virtual class with the National Marine Mammal Foundation. This inspired the team to do something about entanglement from plastics. The team decided to build a USV (Unmanned Surface Vehicle) that would be a motorized water toolbox that delivers tools and supplies to the rescue team when they are working to save an animal. They are building the USV out of materials purchased locally at Menards through team funds and donations. They created a logo and named for their prototype, the "Aqua Assistant." They tested the Aqua Assistant at the Woodbury Country Inn pool with a "mock" dolphin rescue and the USV navigated easily through the water to the dolphin! They continue to make improvements to the design as they work with professionals from across the US. They recently made the deck parts customizable by working with a 3M developer and applying a Dual Lock (TM) product. Their prototype won a national award, the Ocean Ambassador Service Award from the National Marine Mammal Foundation, in November for having a big impact on ocean conservation and for being kid driven. They are now working with robotic manufacturing companies to determine steps to make a commercial version and were very excited to learn the Whale and Dolphin Conservation group from Massachusetts has offered to test it in the Atlantic Ocean after their State Championships.

FACEBOOK AA Video_20241016_095325_0001.mp4

Aqua Assistant

This video shows the Aqua Assistant in action at a local pool where they did a mock dolphin resuce.

Beyond Just Robots

Programming

Mentoring new team members on the robot codes

Fundraising

Team dining fundraiser to help raise funds for the season

Training

Project Management Training at 3M

Robot Game

2023 Regional Robot Game

Celebrations

Team Pizza Party for 2023 Virtual Award Ceremony for Regionals

Mentorship

STEAM Camp "Brick Day Away." Teaching the next generation of young engineers.

Team Awards

2022-2023

2022 Regional Core Value Award Winner
2023 Minnesota State Innovation Project Model Award Winner
2023 Participants at the World Western Edge Invitational in California (Chosen from Waitlist)

2023-2024

2023 Regional Champions Award Winner
2023 Regional Top Robot Performance Award
2024 Minnesota State Judges Award
2024 American Robotics Open Invitational 2nd Place Lightning Robot Alliance in New Jersey

2024-2025

2024 National Marine Mammal Foundation's Ocean Ambassador Service Award Winner
2024 Regional Top Robot Performance Award
2024 Regional Robot Design Award
2025 Sectional Innovation Project Award
2025 MN State Championship 1st Place Innovation Project

Regional Robot Game Performance 1st

Ribbots won the Lakes Division at the MN regional for the top robot performance score of 250 points!

Lightning Round Runner Up, 2nd Place

2nd place with alliance at the AROC lightning robot game rounds

Ocean Ambassador Award Winners

National Marine Mammal Foundation selected the Ribbots as the winner of the 2024 Ocean Ambassador Service Award for a kid-driven project with a big impact on ocean conservation.

Donation Link for Team Sponsors

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