Life at Charles City Middle School
Charles City Middle School News
Events
November 2026
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
November 2026
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
When people think of Legos, they often picture the boxed kits found on store shelves. But for the Charles City Middle School Lego League Robotics team, their creations don’t come with an instruction book.
Each Monday through Thursday after school, team members head to Patrick Nyberg’s classroom to participate in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League. Nyberg is the Talented and Gifted Coordinator for the Charles City Community School District, and also serves as the Middle School Lego League Robotics coach.
According to the Iowa State University website, which facilitates the program in Iowa schools, “FIRST Lego League (FLL) is a youth program aimed to excite young learners in grades preK-8 in the areas of science, engineering, and technology.”
The middle school program launched in the late 2010s, with Nyberg becoming the head coach in 2023. The program has since seen major success, with their accolades including two regional titles in the past three years, three consecutive Top 10 finishes at the state championship (two in the Top 5), two invites to represent Iowa at international summer tournaments, and an all-state robotics invitational title.
“They take a lot of pride in being here and always being one of the top teams in the state. It’s a pretty cool thing that I can support kids to do that,” Nyberg said.
Powered by a platform called SPIKE, the robots function using a rectangular shaped device that has multiple inputs and outputs for a variety of attachments and sensors. When programming the robots, students can either code Python commands directly, or use coding blocks, which are prebuilt chunks of code that students drag and drop into their sequences.
“The solutions they find are theirs,” Nyberg said. “I’ll prompt and guide, but they figure everything out.”
This year, the competition’s missions and board theme focus on biodiversity, with a total of 15 missions on the board, with two teams competing in the fall league. Students work within their teams to decide which missions they aim to complete with their robots to accumulate points within their time limit of two minutes and thirty seconds.
Their work doesn’t end once their missions are over. After the conclusion of the public presentation, students must provide a technical presentation to the judges and explain the thought process behind their robot design and coding.
“It’s explaining the strategy and how you improved your attachments over time,” said Hadden Welter, 7th grade student.
Students also complete a community-focused innovation project. The project has to be tied to the season’s theme, with this year’s project focusing on biodiversity. Students research the theme, then identify a relevant problem they’d like to solve. They can improve existing solutions or create their own, which is then presented to a panel of judges at the competition. This showcases the students’ ability to execute research, collaborate, and receive feedback.
The Middle School Lego League Robotics program is divided into two seasons, one for the fall season, and one for the spring. Fall season teams are focused on advanced strategies and competition readiness, starting with regionals and aiming to advance to the state championship. Spring season focuses more on student learning and exploration, with a friendly intramural CCMS tournament as the finale event.
Spring league features the same robots, missions, and coding platform without any of the additional research or presentations, and serves as a great way for interested students to get started with robotics.
“I liked the spring league, so I thought the fall league would be fun too,” said Cam Lessin, 7th grade student.
Nyberg extended aspects of Lego League further throughout the district, providing materials to students at Charles City Lincoln Elementary as an enrichment activity. Lincoln students are then able to participate in the spring league if they choose to.
The middle school teams also receive support from high school students who were participants in the league when they were middle schoolers, attending practices to help guide the students along in their building and coding processes.
The Middle School Lego League Robotics team goes beyond the skills associated with building and coding their robots. Being a part of Lego robotics allows the students to learn how to collaborate with one another and make decisions as a group with an emphasis on innovative invention.
“I think it’s important that they (the students) get that experience, like ‘What you’ve done is good, and what’s next? How can we make it better?’ It’s always looking for what’s next,” said Nyberg.
The Charles City Middle School Lego League Robotics teams will head to the regional qualifier tournament in Cedar Falls on Saturday, Dec. 5. Their performances at this tournament will determine if they move on to the state competition.