SUSSEX, Wis. — A Waukesha County Middle School robotics team will soon compete on a world stage. 

The Cyber Turtles of Templeton Middle School in Sussex recently won Wisconsin’s First Lego League (FLL) competition.

Aanya Ranasaria, an eighth grader, has been on the team for two years. She, along with several other members, helped program a Lego robot to complete certain tasks.
 
“FLL is a program that’s changed my life, like truly,” Ranasaria said. “Like, it’s helped me decide what I want my career to be. I want to go into STEM when I’m older and before joining FLL, I wouldn’t have realized that."

The team also took part in the league challenge.

This year, the goal was to make the transportation of goods more efficient.

Disha Deebak said they approached the issue by creating a battery sleuth that would help truck drivers identify quicker when a battery needs to be replaced.

“We learned about how we could first identify the problem in the first place and do the research that requires to realize how much of an impact this problem has and then from there, developing the solution through brainstorming and troubleshooting, seeing what would and what wouldn’t work and just redoing and trying so many didn’t things to see what will work,” Deebak said.

This is the second time in three years that the Cyber Turtles have won the state competition. However, the team couldn’t advance to attend the world festival the first time they were champions in 2020 because of the pandemic.

It became the primary motivator to win at the state level again and so they could go to the World Festival in Houston.

That’s why Ranasaria will never forget the moment she realized the Cyber Turtles had accomplished their goal

“I’m going to Houston. Are you sure that happened? Someone pinch me,” she said. “I was like, Disha pinch me really hard. Am I dreaming or not? Like when it happened, it was like amazing to me that was something that our team did.”

The Cyber Turtles will compete against teams from 50 different countries in April.

Ranasaria said she is excited to compete, have fun and bond over robotics with the other teams.

The Templeton Middle School is also looking for sponsors to help fund their trip to the World Festival.

More information on how to help the team can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/cyber-turtles-for-robotics-world?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1. The team’s adviser can also be contacted at tmsrobos@gmail.com.