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 team is looking forward to the 2024-2025 season that is themed on oceans. The innovation project is underway and the first robot game mission is accomplished. We have a lot of work ahead of us and are looking forward to seeing where the season takes us!

Current 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 Invitational

2024 AROC Lightning Round Finalist

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 have also learned to used My Blocks this season and the gyro straight function.

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 has 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 will be testing the final design in October at Country Inn in Woodbury with a mock dolphin rescue.