Vienna Elementary School fifth-grader Brock Gillispie, left, and third-grader Rylan Taylor, right, watch a demo run Monday of the Viking Voyagers’ LEGO robot. The team won second place this past weekend in a state tournament at Fairmont State University, and in May will compete at an invitational in South Carolina. (Photo by Michael Erb)

VIENNA — The youngest FIRST LEGO League team in Wood County Schools placed second in a West Virginia robotics tournament and will represent the state in May at an invitational in South Carolina.

The Vienna Elementary School Viking Voyagers competed Saturday at Fairmont State University, putting their technical knowledge, engineering and programming skills to the test in a series of events. The Viking Voyagers were one of the youngest teams at the state competition and are the youngest team in Wood County Schools.

Teacher and coach Melissa Taylor said the event was both nerve-wracking and exhilarating.

“I think it’s just incredible. They killed it the whole way through,” she said.

This marked the first year for Taylor as both the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, teacher at Vienna Elementary and as coach of the robotics team. During the awards ceremony, Taylor said the students kept hoping they would be awarded a prize for enthusiasm or teamwork, but never thought they’d place high.

Vienna Elementary School fifth-grader Will Bashaw holds the FIRST LEGO Tournament medallion he and each of his teammates received after competing this past weekend at Fairmont State University. The team, one of the youngest at the tournament and the youngest in Wood County Schools, placed second overall. (Photo by Michael Erb)

“We thought, ‘oh no, all that’s left are the champion awards.’ But we clapped for everyone,” she said. “When they announced we’d won second place … it was screaming and crying and hugging. It was nothing that we expected at all.”

The team will compete in the FIRST LEGO League Carolinas Open Invitational from May 6-9 at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The Viking Voyagers will be the only West Virginia team at the event, and will compete with teams from throughout the United States and internationally, such as Greece, Australia and Honduras.

Taylor said the team placed third in a qualifying tournament at West Virginia University at Parkersburg, but in placing second at the state level actually beat the teams they’d lost to in the local event.

“That made it even more exciting,” she said.

Though just shy of moving on to the national competition, the team was selected for the South Carolina invitational.

“I’m so proud of them,” Taylor said. “I really couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Fifth-grader Brock Gillispie said in addition to building the robot, the team had to program it to complete a series of tasks in a tabletop obstacle course.

“That was probably the hardest part, the programming,” he said.

Third-grader Rylan Taylor said the team performed a skit to answer questions and show their robotics knowledge.

“We had a news reporter and a cameraman and ‘we were live on the scene,'” he said, describing the entire experience as “nervousing (sic) and fun.”

Fifth-grader Will Bashaw said for him the best part of the competition was the Viking Voyagers themselves.

“I’ve liked working together as a team with my new friends,” he said.