Ask the members of the Knots and Bots independent robotics team what the most challenging part of competing in the First Lego League competition is, and they’ll tell you that it’s the frustration that comes when something they have spent hours designing, programming and building doesn’t work.

The best part? When they figure out the problem and see the Lego robot working as designed.

“The most fun part is when something you worked on so hard finally works,” said Ally Shutler, an eighth grader at Alphonsus Academy and Center for the Arts. Ally, who never did robotics before this year, plans to attend St. Ignatius College Prep next year.

“If we never made a mistake, it wouldn’t be as fun,” added Evelyn Suss, an eighth grader at St. Clement School who also plans to attend Walter Payton College Prep. “The fun part is seeing all that hard work pay off.”

Knots and Bots, consisting of Ally, Evelyn, Claire McTaggart and Julia Jablonski, was one of five teams to take home a Champion Finalist trophy from the FLL World Championships in Houston in April, becoming the most successful of the teams coached by Julia’s parents, Joan and Joe Jablonski.

The team was one of 153 to compete at worlds, half from the United States and half from other countries. Overall, the international league include 35,000 teams. This year’s overall winner was a team from Brazil.

The Jablonskis started forming independent teams about nine years ago, when the oldest of their three daughters was old enough for the fourth through eighth grade division of the league, as a way to help the girls develop an interest in STEM. Almost all of the teams have been all girls, Joan Jablonski said.

Each year, the league creates a course that the robots must complete, and teams can use the parts that come in a kit as well as other Lego parts they might have to design and program a robot to complete the course. Each team must also create a “global innovation” project based on a theme set each year.

This year’s theme was designing a technology platform to share and teach people about one of their interests. Knots and Bots took advantage of Ally’s skill at crocheting to create a program that would use the Internet to connect older people who want to pass on their crochet skills to younger enthusiasts, and have them make hats which could then be given to people in need of warm winter clothing.

The team interviewed people ranging from web developers and senior home activity directors. They also distributed prototype hats while serving at a local soup kitchen.

“It’s really nice to see people who don’t get to share what they do every day talk about it,” said Claire, a St. Clement eighth grader who plans to attend St. Ignatius.

Team members said they think their innovation project really helped them at the world championships.

“It has to be something realistic,” Claire said.

“It was unique,” added Julia, a St. Clement eighth grader who also plans to attend St. Ignatius. Being unique was important, she said, because if a project is too similar to that of other teams, there’s a chance one of those teams did it better.

Team members met at least once a week for two to four hours at a time throughout the school year to work on the robot and their project, and also put in time on their own. They estimate that each team member contributed at least 80 hours of work since August.

While this was the last year for this team, some of the members plan to pursue robotics in high school, and they have already given back, mentoring six Illinois elementary school teams this year. They are proud to say that all of those teams at least made it to the state competition.

“It helps you understand computers and engineering, and could help kickstart a career path,” Evelyn said.