Their idea for an easy way to fill water bottles at school drinking fountains landed team TACO (Totally Awesome Cardinals, Obviously), Crabapple Lane Elementary School’s First Lego League (FLL) robotics team, a top award at the FLL state championship held at Georgia Gwinnett College.

Above, members of team TACO show off the First Lego League state championship trophy they received for their innovative solution to filling water bottles at drinking fountains. Photo/Fayette School System.

The team won the Innovative Solution Award for their device that allows students to easily and quickly fill their water bottles from school drinking fountains. They received a perfect score on their project rubric that landed them the trophy. Members of Team TACO are Madison Lohr, Emmett Fisher, Marcus Morrow, Wynn McDonell, Jack Silcox, Graiden Garcia, Rina Suzuki, Cydney Fox, and Gavin McClure. The team’s coaches are Melissa Lohr and Stephanie Fisher.

Each year FLL issues a project challenge to solve a problem. This year’s challenge was “Hydro Dynamics,” where students had to solve a problem related to the human water cycle (how humans and water interact).

Team TACO noticed that students were spending a lot of time trying to fill their water bottles at the schools’ drinking fountains, so they designed a retrofit kit, called the Sip ‘N Fill, that is more affordable than ones currently on the market, and allows students to either sip water from the fountain or turn a valve to fill their water bottles. The kit consists of an attachment that connects to the bubbler head of the fountain without the need to drill holes or run additional water lines.

The Sip ‘N Fill saves lost instructional time that is incurred by long lines at the drinking fountain and reduces the use of plastic water bottles that end up in landfills.

There were over 760 teams competing at this year’s FLL state championship. Team TACO was in the top 8 percent of teams in Georgia to make it to the state tournament.