First robotics contest Makes Science chill!

Robot No. 219 was designed and built by Warren Hills Regional High School students in six weeks.

High School students participate in FIRST robotics competition.
Blair Robot Project competes at Washington, D.C.
regional.Blair team already preparing for tough future competitions.The Blair Robot Project placed 23rd among 65 participating teams at the 2009 FIRST FRC (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Robotics Competition) Washington, D.C. regional in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Feb.

The FRC challenges students around the country with a game design from which teams have six weeks to assimilate their engineering, programming and constructing skills into a robot to accomplish the game's objectives. This year's game, "Lunacy," required team robots to work in alliances to score balls into baskets attached to opposing robots while driving around on a slick arena track.

With four wins and three losses in the qualification matches at the D.C. regional, Blair was not picked to move on to elimination matches, the next step of the competition. Problems attributed to the camera sensor detecting for the robot's shooter hindered the team from scoring. The shooter ended up calculating the distance and power needed to score too slowly at the competition since all targets were moving, according to senior member William Shepherdson.

The team plans to participate again at the Chesapeake regional on March 19. "We can bring 40 pounds of parts and things we build to modify our robot for Chesapeake," Shepherdson said. "We want to retweak the code a bit and are thinking about redoing our scoring mechanism." Teams from the winning alliance of each regional competition move on to the national championship in Atlanta, Ga. on April 16.

The Blair Robot Project, sponsored by physics teacher Joseph Boettcher and computer science teacher Mary McManus, began the build season on Jan. 3 by dividing and conquering their task through smaller groups - electronics, programming, drive, specialty and public relations. Three thousand dollars in parts, $9,000 in prototyping and hundreds of hours of work later was a 119-pound, five-foot tall robot complete with an automated-camera controlled turret shooter and a smooth drive system. "Some of the most dedicated members put in over 200 hours over build season," junior vice president Eric Van Albert said