About

Team Random

We’re a group of eighth graders at Charleston County School of the Arts, who were friends before we decided to become a FLL team. Some of us have known each other since the third grade. We became friends because (among other reasons) we shared several classes, we were friends beforehand, or we ended up sitting together at lunch. We all also participated in the Duke TIP Program (where seventh graders take the same SAT as high schoolers) and all made state level recognition. In February of 2009, Hiers and Vivek began to think about putting together a lego robotics team. Here we are.

Team Members

Ben -

Ben is a Cellist at SOA in the Strings program. He has played cello since fifth grade, and now plays weekly in the St. Benedicts Church choir, as well as being first chair in the 2009, 2010 South Carolina Region for All State Orchestra. In seventh grade, he was selected for the trial run of the Mentors in the Middle program. He’s been working with legos since he was four. (Ben and Emily are the ‘masterbuilders.’ Ben attended one summer camp at Trident Technical college last summer for lego robotics.

His hobbies, favorites, and random facts:

• Legos: build, destroy, build again
• Playing cello
• Drawing
• Reading
• History (a self-professed nerd)
• Composing music
• Playing Paintball
• Listening to music: classical, alternative, new age, holiday, Brazilian, rock, soundtrack, and world, not in that order
• TV: the history channel
• Movie: Avatar

Emily -

Emily is a Creative Writer at SOA, but that’s not all she is. She likes to defy stereotypes, including the ones about dumb blonds and damsels in distress. She demonstrates her defiance by being an honor roll student, as well as an avid learner. Her favorite school subjects are: all of them. When somebody tells you she reads a lot, they mean it…she probably reads eight to ten thousand pages a week. Among other occupations, she wants to be a marine biologist, English teacher, author, or book editor. She attended two summer camps at Trident Technical College, Charleston, for robotics and engineering. She also loves being outside in any kind of weather.

Her hobbies, favorites, and random facts:

• Singing, gardening, surfing, sewing, and writing
• Traveling (to London, Costa Rica, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, , the San Jaun Islands, and the BVIs).
• Fencing. Emily is going to Memphis for the Junior Olympics in February 2010 for Women’s Foil U-17 Fencing!
• Learning anything (also, a self-professed nerd)
• Loves to build lego sets and then abandon them to her younger brother–what use are they once you’ve made them?
• TV : Castle, Glee, Frasier, Firefly, Survivor, Sonny with a Change, Jeopardy and the syfy channe
• Reading: fantasy and sci-fi; Madeline L’engle, Cassandra Clare, James Patterson, Tamora Pierce, and Cassandra Clare
• Movies: Lord of the Rings, all Star Wars, Serenity, new Star Trek, Alice, Writers, Pete’s Dragon, and Willow
• Making origami
• Listening to music: Lady Antebellum,  U2, Simon and Garfunkel, The Housemartins, and Gaelic Storm

Hiers -

Hiers was the person with the original idea for starting a Lego team. He has been playing with legos and inventing all of his life. He has built a working: NXT guitar, miniature vending machine, a dragster, an NXT race track for small cars, and many other various lego-based things. He has performed with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in a production of Sam I Am. He was also Amahl in Amahl and the night Visitors in a church play. He has won first place in County 4-H denonstration four times, and won state in  twice. He is a vocalist at SOA and plans to become an engineer when he grows up.

His hobbies, favorites and random facts:

• Reading: fantasy and sci-fi; no favorite authors
• building with lego
• camping
• computer games
• School subjects: math and science
• Listening to music: country and other music
• Movie: Avatar

Vivek -

Vivek is a violinist at SOA in the Strings prgram. He has played the violin for nine years; he’s the concertmaster for the middle school orchestra. He had experience in programming beforehand, and attended two camps at Trident Tech last summer in engineering and robotics. He’s usually a straight A student.

His hobbies favorites, and random facts:

• Playing guitar
• He’ll sometimes break out into song for no apparent reason
• Music: Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, and Def Leppards, and Metallica
• Playing videogames