BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — As schools across Kentucky prepare to go on winter break, many are taking finals and finishing up essays; however, students in Warren County are making their final tweaks on robots made of Legos.

Marnie Beckham teaches seventh grade at Warren East Middle School.

Beckham said, “Kids have had to learn to program the robot to drive forwards and backwards, make turns.”

But it’s not just for a project and a grade. These students are using the Lego robots in competitions.

One competition requires a robot to push the other out of the ring.

Beckham said, “Once a wheel hits the floor, or any part of the robot hits the floor, that means they’re out.”

But that competition is for class only.

Another competition these robots will participate in is point based and is performed on a board or table. The robot has to independently perform certain objectives to score as many points as possible.

Beckham said, “They have a mission where they will go out and knock the yellow bar, make a shark come out, knock quarrels over, doing different missions all over the board.”

Students will first play at the regional level, and, if they’re good enough, they can advance to the state level or even the national level. Students Kitana and Finlie, made a robot together and are about to send it off into competition.

Finlie said, “We designed him to be more like a square so it can get through smaller areas and without hitting anything.”

Students will have several more meetings with Mrs. Beckham before the competition.

Editor’s note: Since the students are minors, we are not using their last names in this story.