Winners of the TEAMS Egg Hunt Competition were Mark Page, left, of Littleton and Johnson Pham of Lowell.

Advanced high-school students enrolled in UMass Lowell’s TEAMS Academy built and programmed robots that competed in the annual TEAMS “Egg Hunt Competition” held earlier this year.

Mark Page of Littleton and Johnson Pham of Lowell won the contest, with Rachel Wilk of Tewksbury and Uyhor Eav of Lowell as runners up.

The students, who are enrolled in the University’s college-level Interactive Robotics class, applied the skills they have learned during the semester-long course to design, build, and program iRobot Create units that could perform complex tasks.

In this multifaceted, highly competitive project, the students’ robots went head to head with one another to hunt and capture “eggs” using electronic sensors and creative, interactive robotic features designed by students. After several rounds, the two highest-scoring robots competed in the final round.

The TEAMS Academy is a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) program at the University that gives regional high school students the opportunity to explore various career fields as they take creative, specially designed college courses. These entry-level college courses will help students develop their existing STEM skills in both classroom and laboratory environments.  Students participate in hands-on, project-based components that take advantage of the extensive laboratory resources of UMass Lowell.

For more information, visit http://gse.uml.edu/academy or contact Donna DeSimone, TEAMS Academy project manager, at 978-934-4613.

- Edwin_Aguirre

The runners up in the competition were Rachel Wilk, left, of Tewksbury and Uyhor Eav of Lowell.