FRANKLIN—While many children play with LEGO blocks after school, a group of S.P. Morton students take it to the extreme.

In fact, Miller Zurfluh, 10, has three bins at home full of the building blocks. So when he learned about a program in school that designed robots made of LEGOs, he just needed to know where to sign up.

“I was like ‘This is my thing,’” the fourth-grader said.

His classmate, Jaheim Douglas, 10, added, “I would like to be an inventor one day. This is something that gives me a chance to build stuff. I’m always building stuff, and I’ll be doing it the rest of my life.”

The LEGO League team, coached by S.P. Morton gifted teacher Elizabeth Burgess and math lab teacher Calvin Sing, recently placed first in the regional tournament in Chesterfield, and they will compete in the state tournament in Harrisonburg from Dec. 7-8.

The theme this year is Nature’s Fury, and the students are challenged to come up with a project on a natural disaster of their choosing. The children chose the earthquake, figuring that a lot of people wouldn’t be informed on this disaster. For their project, they chose to do a skit and present a coloring book.

The idea of the coloring book came from Franklin Fire Chief Vince Holt, who suggested that the best way to reach adults is through their children. The students researched the information that went in the book on their own.

The team is judged based on robot design and receives points based on the missions that the robot successfully completes. The children design and program a robot in advance to perform the missions, which are performed on the Nature’s Fury table.

Lastly, the students are judged on their teamwork.

“They were just a great group all the way around,” said Burgess. “They did it on their own, and they were able to do extremely well. We’re very proud of what they did.”

The skit detailed a student coming home from school with the coloring book, and once the father got home from work, the student, Jaheim, went through the information about earthquakes. Once he finished talking about the book, an earthquake happened and the family knew what to do thanks to the book.

More to help their team unity, they came up with a team motto. They even had T-shirts made.

“It’s ‘Keep calm and compete,’” said Alexis Gorgei, 11. “And focus, in honor of Mr. Sing, who is always telling us to focus.”

Learning a lesson from last year, when their robot was more complicated, the students decided to keep it simple, both in design and programming. And in Chesterfield, that helped them, said Sing. The judge was impressed with a simple panel system designed by Dorothy Conner, 11, which could pull, push, lift and knock down objects.

“The judge was intrigued that a simple device could do so many things,” he said.

Alexis, Elizabeth Granger, 11, and LaSean Nichols-Porter, 11, were the primary programmers, or “chief programmers” as LaSean put it.

“Programming is a challenge,” he said. “I like it because it is complicated. I really like to challenge myself.”

Dorothy said that programming codes was something that could bring you back to the drawing board a lot.

“Sometimes, something doesn’t work, so you go back adjustments,” she said.

“But when you get it to complete the mission, it’s a really cool feeling,” added Alexis.

Cherié Karmilovich, the mom of Conner Karmilovich, 9, said that Burgess and Sing have done a great job with the program.

“My daughter went through the program,” she said. “And now, seeing my son in it, it’s just a fantastic program.”

Winning at the regional tournament was a good feeling, said Dorothy.

“We were jumping off the bleachers, jumping over rows of chairs,” she said. “We didn’t even realize it, we were just excited.”

“I may or may not have been singing ‘We are the Champions,’” said Miller. “OK, I did start singing.”

But they aren’t done with winning at regionals.

“We are going to do it better,” said LaSean of the state tournament.

Jaheim added, “Quake Crew is the best!”