Students Vie as Friends and Foes With Robots

Imagine six dancers on a small, crowded floor. They’ve only just met, but have to perform an intricate number, being judged both on their individual performances and how they perform as a group.

Now, imagine the same setup with robots on the floor.

That’s the challenge facing two local teams as they compete this week against 350-plus teams from around the world at the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics Competition and at the Edward Jones Dome at America's Center in downtown St. Louis.

A total of 52 students from all four high schools in the Rockwood School District joined forces to design and build robots to compete in two classes of competition. Approximately 20 of the overall team members are at the downtown championship. The Boson-Subatomic Particles team, representing Eureka High School, is competing in the Tech Challenge division, which uses smaller robots. The Rock-Bots team, composed of students from all four of Rockwood's high schools, competes in the Robotics division, with larger machines.

Having students from different schools on the same team can be a challenge in scheduling, admitted Lafayette High School senior Christina Schmidt, but it also brings together more team members with different skills. “The Eureka students have a lot of experience in the FTC (technical challenge) competitions, and they do more of the programming. The kids from Lafayette do a lot of the mechanical work.”

The pressure is increased by the brief period of time students have to develop, build and perfect their projects, said team mentor Andy Hereford, a spouse of a Lafayette teacher, Paige Hereford, who also is mentoring the district-level team. “The projects are assigned on the first Saturday in January, and the teams have six weeks to complete them before the first event,” he said. “The Rock-Bots team worked more than 3,000 hours to get here today.”

Eureka High School senior Brandon Kane, who’s taking part in his third robotics event, paused while checking over the Rock-Bots robot one last time before the competition began. He said the process has taught him to sharpen his thought processes and focus on problem solving. “I learned what making something is all about.”

Although the event is a competition, cooperation among teams is vital. In each of the qualifying rounds, teams are randomly selected for “alliances.” The Bosons joined with a team from Pacifica, CO, in their first event, while the Rock-Bots were grouped with teams from Machester, NH, and New York City. “Teams have to work together for each round,” said Eureka High School technology education teacher and team mentor Bob Spellmeyer.

“We’ll see them trading repair parts, and working on common strategies. Because the alliances are chosen at random, a team can be your opponent in one round and your partner in the next.”

In fact, noted Spellmeyer, even if a team is eliminated, other teams can ask individual members to join them for the final round.

As with real-life industrial robots, each competitor is programmed to do a single task. The Boson robot picked up wooden pegs and placed them in a bowl. The Rock-Bots' entry gathered inflatable rings and hung them on posts. The teams operated both units, and controlled their movements by remote control.

Earlier this year, the team coached by Spellmeyer and retired scientist Doug Rohrer, won first in state in the FTC category.

Qualifying rounds continue Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Dome, with the final competition beginning at 7:30 a.m. Saturday. The event is open to the public; admission is free. The competition also can be followed online through webcasts.

This year is the first time the international annual contest has been held in St. Louis, although it is scheduled to be here for the next two years as well.