You're never too young to start work on your first robot. Or at least that seems to be the lesson after three Springfield elementary school students presented a robotic arm made out of lego blocks at the New Jersey Junior FIRST LEGO League Expo on Dec. 11.

The Springfield team the Robosharks were first formed after parents of the first members—both then in Kindergarten—attended the LRC Jr.FLL Expo in Livingston last May and were impressed with what they saw. 

They formed a team for the Junior First Lego League, or Jr.FLL, a program for children ages 6-9. League is a program of FIRST, an organization in New Hampshire. Livingston Robotics Club (LRC), a non-profit organization based in Livingston, is active in encouraging New Jersey children in grades K-12 to participate in activities related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics through one of the FIRST programs.

"The Expo helped us by providing an opportunity to speak to coaches and parents from other Jr.FLL teams," Olga Pylypovych, one of the team coaches, said in an email. "We became certain that we would manage, so we tried and never regretted our decision."

Robosharks members are now in first grade. The team has added a second grader as their third member. The expanded team and started doing research project and using LEGO WeDo, a robotics kit for young children with special parts that can be connected to regular LEGO blocks and allow them to write simple robotics programs.

"It was extremely easy to start as a Jr.FLL coach," Pylypovych said. Motivation, flexibility, and patience are the only must-haves that are needed.

As part of this year's theme, "Body Forward," the team researched prosthetic engineering, particularly types of arm prostheses in. Organizers said that to understand the complexity and the challenges of the topic, children studied the skeleton and muscular systems of human body as a part of Science component of the challenge.

In Engineering they learned about classes of levers and how the human body moves through lever mechanisms. The team researched hand movements, and broke the hands down into simple operations. They applied what they learned to build, tes, and program the motorized LEGO arm that was lifting/lowering a ball and worked towards throwing a ball.

After completing their project poster and model, they went to the Jr.FLL Expo at New Jersey State FIRST LEGO League Championship at Mt. Olive High School on Dec. 11. While the main event was the State level robotics competition for children ages 9-14, the organizer also hosted the Jr.FLL Expo where eight New Jersey Jr.FLL teams exhibited their work and received awards in various categories.

"The part I enjoyed the most is to go and see the projects other teams did," said Max Zhu, age 6.

Each team was treated with a unique and special award.Robosharks received the "Most Explosive Award."

"When our team went upfront to get our award I felt as if we won the first prize," Gregory Pylypovych, the other 6-year-old member said. "I want to do it again. It was so much fun."

Sebastien Tham, age 7, agreed. "Getting the trophy was the best part," he said. 

FIRST accepts registration from new teams until April 2011. There will be upcoming Expos in New Jersey. The last Expo of the season is scheduled for May 28 in Livingston. Visit LRC website for more information.