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LAKEPORT, Calif. — Sharp Academy Robotics, a team of four young students from Lakeport, took home two top awards at the 2026 NorCal FLL Challenge: San Jose Spring League, held March 29 at The Play Space in San Jose.
Competing against 11 other teams drawn from across the Bay Area and Northern California, the team won both the Robot Performance Award, given to the team with the highest score in the robot competition, and the Innovation Project Award for their project, "AI-Powered Field Notes." It was the team's first year participating in the program.
The team members are Clara Luchsinger, 14; Alina Luchsinger, 12; Kadence Beinhauer, 13; and Rhezden Beinhauer, 11, all from Lakeport, coached by Andrew Luchsinger as part of a homeschool program.
FIRST LEGO League is an international STEM competition program for students ages 9 to 14. Each year, teams are challenged around a new real-world theme.
This season's theme, “Unearthed,” is inspired by archaeology, inviting young innovators to explore how the discoveries and technologies of the past connect to the future.
Teams are evaluated equally across four areas: a robot game, robot design, an innovation project, and core values.
For the robot game, students design, build, and program an autonomous LEGO robot to complete a series of timed missions on a themed playing field. Sharp Academy's robot, nicknamed Bobo and programmed in Python, competed in multiple 2.5-minute matches with each team's best score counting toward the final ranking.
Bobo finished with the highest score of any team in the competition, earning Sharp Academy first place in the robot game and the Robot Performance Award.
The Innovation Project challenged teams to identify a real-world problem tied to the season's archaeology theme, develop an innovative solution, and present their findings to a panel of judges. Sharp Academy's team tackled what researchers call the "Archaeological Data Crisis" — the ongoing loss of historical information caused by inconsistent field notes, poor documentation practices, and data trapped on failing or obsolete storage media such as deteriorating floppy disks.
Their solution is an AI assistant agent that acts as a real-time quality control tool for archaeologists working in the field. Powered by a large language model enhanced with a custom knowledge base, the system prompts excavators with targeted questions during note-taking to ensure that critical details about artifacts are captured accurately and consistently, while preserving the natural feel of fieldwork documentation.
To test the concept, the team used LEGO bricks as stand-in artifacts, focusing on three basic parameters: color, shape, and size. Seven participants described a total of 42 different LEGO artifacts, simulating real field conditions. Before using the AI agent, color accuracy stood at 52%, shape at 58%, and size at just 35%. After running the notes through the agent, all three categories reached 100% accuracy and the overall detail in written notes doubled. The team noted that while LEGO bricks served as a practical proof of concept, a real-world version of the tool would be expanded to capture the full range of attributes archaeologists record in the field.
The team presented their research through a poster and a hands-on creative diorama, then delivered a live five-minute presentation before judges, followed by a question-and-answer session.
"I'm incredibly proud of what these kids accomplished," said coach Andrew Luchsinger. "Competing in Silicon Valley against experienced teams and winning two awards in our very first year speaks to the hard work they've put in since last August. They didn't just learn robotics and coding. They learned how to research a real-world problem, plan a project, present their ideas confidently, and work as a team. It was a great experience all around."
The competition is part of the NorCal FLL recreational Spring League, organized by Playing at Learning. Participating students ranged from 4th through 8th grade.
For more information about FIRST LEGO League, visit firstlegoleague.org. For more information about NorCal FLL, visit norcalfllc.org.
