Two teams from Barrington competed at the First LEGO League Rhode Island State Championship at Roger Williams University on Saturday, Jan. 12.

Team Elements, which is comprised of fourth- and fifth-graders at Hampden Meadows School, earned an invitation to the state competition by finishing in first place in the "Robot Design" category and second place in the "Robot Performance" category at the qualifying tournament at Gordon School in East Providence in early December.

Team Elements is family/community team that is coached by four local parents. 

The St. Luke’s School team, named SLS Streamers, participated in a regional day-long qualifying competition at Rocky Hill School and was one of the top-scoring teams. As a result, the local private school team earned a spot in the robotics state championship.

At states, Streamers won the Robot Mechanical Design Award. 

In First LEGO League, students use LEGO Mindstorm kits to build and program robots that can score points on a game board by completing missions and clearing obstacles. Each competition has a theme, and this year's theme was "Into Orbit." 

"The team also learned about traveling through space and had to identify a specific challenge related to space travel and create an innovative solution to address the problem," wrote one of the team Elements parents. "Team Elements investigated the use of virtual reality and met with an expert in the field to devise a way to ease the emotional stress astronauts can experience being away from family, friends and familiar surroundings for long periods of time."