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Robotics competition
meets at Valley Tech
By Steven H. Foskett Jr.
Telegram & Gazette Staff
11-21-04 -- UPTON - The team from
Northborough looked confident early.
The ball landed squarely in the middle basket, which, at
yesterday’s Lego junior robotics tournament at Blackstone Valley Regional
Vocational Technical High School, might have been a death blow to any other team
but the one from Sharon.
Unfazed, the Sharon Eagle Robotics Team
stayed focused and trumped the Northborough team’s earlier feat. Sharon’s robot
— made from LEGO toys and programmed by the students to perform certain tasks —
scooted down the table, made a hard right and climbed a set of Lego stairs with
ease.
At the same time, the Northborough
team’s robot attempted the stairs — worth 45 points if done right — but got hung
up. One of the boys on the team instinctively ran over to give the robot a
nudge, but caught himself at the last moment, knowing that his team would lose
points if he helped.
The
competition, organized at Valley Tech by educator Michael Norton, ran throughout
the day yesterday, as 48 teams — most from the area but a few from New York and
Rhode Island — feverishly competed for the chance to advance to state semifinals
and possibly the national finals.
Hundreds of parents, family members and friends packed the Valley Tech gym to
cheer on the competitors.
The team from Sharon lost in the national finals last year in Atlanta.
“It’s a lot more than LEGOs,” said parent Paul Mende, a coach of the team. “They
learn programming, they learn teamwork.”
Patrick Pilvines, a member of the team, said yesterday’s victory will help his
team stay motivated for further competition.
“It was huge,” Patrick said of the overall win.
Each year, the nationwide competition, which is sanctioned by For Inspiration
and Recognition of Science and Technology — FIRST — the organization that
oversees the high-school-level robotics teams, brings children ages 9 to 14
together to compete according to a different theme.
This year’s theme was “No Limits,” which had students devising ways to develop
assistive devices for people with a range of disabilities. A team from
Shrewsbury had T-shirts emblazoned with what looked like handicapped parking
symbols.
Some of the tasks in the competition involved picking up loose items, such as
sunglasses, or developing a robot that could open a gate. It’s all on a smaller
scale, but the idea is to get the kids thinking about the concepts, said Stephen
Grabowski, a communications officer with Valley Tech.
Other tasks included feeding Lego pets, reading bus route signs and putting a
compact disc away.
Judges hovered around the tables as the kids ran back and forth to plastic bins
yesterday, changing parts in the fashion of NASCAR pit crews.
The robots were not remote-controlled; the students had to program the robots
using computers and feed the data into the robot. Once a task was programmed, it
was up to the robot to do its job.
Mr. Grabowski said students from the carpentry shop built the tables on which
the students competed, and LEGO, of course, donated the building blocks.
Teams from Douglas, Northbridge, Uxbridge and Shrewsbury won awards. Other local
teams included Boylston, Westborough, Harvard, Blackstone, Holden and Lunenburg.
Copyright
2004 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.
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