More than two dozen Barrington Middle School students will show off this weekend two robots they have built to improve the lives of the elderly.

The seventh- and eighth-graders are competing in the FIRST® LEGO® League "Senior Solutions" Qualifier Tournament on Dec. 1, 2012 at Kickemuit Middle School in Warren and Dec. 2 at Bay View Academy in East Providence.

The teams are made up of 8 and 6 students, respectively. They are competing for a chance to advance to the FIRST LEGO League State Championship in January at Roger Williams University in Bristol.

The teams have spent October and November designing, building and programming robots to complete missions on a standardized pre-built game table, said Gary Monuteaux, a robotics teacher who is their adviser. The robots and the playing field are made entirely of LEGO elements.

The missions represent concepts from gerontology, such as making it easier to walk, lift, carry, and move objects. The teams will have 2-1/2 minutes to earn points as their robots complete the 12 missions on the playing field, said   Monuteaux. More difficult missions earn a higher number of points.

FIRST LEGO League is a hands-on science, technology, engineering and math enrichment program that combines robotics with a research project that encourages scientific literacy. In morning judging sessions, each team will present a research project that highlights what they have learned about gerontology to a panel of volunteer experts from the community.

The teams also will be judged on how well they cooperate and work together, said Monuteaux.

Here is Team #1:

• Eliot Laidlaw (Capt.)
• Andrew Cook
• Conor Mc Gartoll
• Theenash Kumar
• Conor Medeiros
• Kyle Villella

Here is Team #2

• Haotian Lu (Capt.)
• Rayna Mishra
• Riddhi Adhiya
• Haoran Wen
• Christian McEllroy
• Josephine (Jo Jo) Kuo
• Anna Han
• Oskar Schnippering