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They're elevating the robots' big game
By Cristina Silva, Globe Staff, March 26, 2006
Box-shaped robots zoomed across the mat yesterday, sending foam balls flying
through the arena as speakers blasted pop hits from Kelly Clarkson and Marky
Mark. Parents and students excitedly whacked together noise-making yellow foam
bars.
And with the announcers' scream of ''Welcome to Boston, baby," the semifinals
FIRST robotics regional competition began, sending hoop-making robots hustling
across the field as their drivers intently pushed and prodded joysticks behind
nearby walls of Plexiglas.
Decked out in laboratory goggles and bright T-shirts emblazoned with their team
mascots, more than 1,000 students, making up 44 teams from across the United
States, and one lone team from Brazil, gathered at Boston University's Agganis
Arena for the national engineering competition yesterday and Friday.
The contest is part of a program that aims to boost teenagers' confidence and
knowledge of science, said Marc Hodosh, the regional director for the
competition.
''It's not meant to be a classroom experience," he said.
''The kids have to do everything themselves."
This year, students were asked to make basketball-playing robots. During a
match, each team tries get their robot to scoop up the balls in the playing
field and toss them into the three goals: a large hoop in the center, and two
low corrals in the corners of the field.
The winners were the three teams that achieved the most wins in the final round
of matches: Tolman High School of Pawtucket, R.I., the Navsea Undersea Warfare
Center and University of Rhode Island team, and the NASA Kennedy Space Center
team from Cocoa Beach, Fla.
Students were given six weeks to design and build the robots. For rookies, it
can often be a stressful and exhilarating experience.
Tania Nora, 16, a junior at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in
Roxbury, took a beat from the song ''YMCA" as she watched her teammates steer
their robot toward a goal.
After weeks of carving out the five hours a day they needed to complete their
robot, they finished in 31st place. ''At least we didn't come in dead last,"
Nora said.
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