Engineering, cheering

Clash of robots, and their young creators, is seriously goofy stuff.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM, Times Staff Writer
Published January 13, 2008

Teammates from Lomax Elementary School in Tampa rally around a panther mascot to celebrate a successful round of robot competition Saturday at Armwood High School in Seffner.
	[Kathleen Flynn | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Kathleen Flynn | Times] Homeschoolers Hannah White, 14, left, and Braden Verkaik, 9, of Lake County's Hammer Heads team celebrate after completing a mission during competition at Armwood High School in Seffner on Saturday. Five teams from the Armwood tournament will advance to state-level competition. "Each year it's a different subject," said Hannah, a competitor for four years. "We learned a lot."

SEFFNER

There are kids in tinfoil crowns and kids dressed as Jedi knights, kids wearing cowbells and kids with their hair dyed pink, and kids with Mardi Gras beads slung around their necks. There are kids shrieking, waving pompoms and chanting:

Mighty mighty

GADGET GIRLS

OH OH OH

GADGET GIRLS

This is what a robotics competition looks like in the 21st century. Goofy. Exuberant. LOUD.

"It's become almost like a sporting event," said 15-year-old Caroline Bresnan, who has been participating in the First Lego League Robotics Competition for six years.

She looks serious, which is hard to do when you're packing a light saber.

The robots are made of Legos - those plastic blocks that snap together - each with its own programmable brain and motor. Because they are made out of Legos, the robots are easy to modify, but also easy to break.

Today, each robot has to perform 13 tasks in 2.5 minutes. Among them: push a load, hook a target, tip over another Lego structure.

The teams are also judged on their research, presentation, the technical mechanics of their robots, and their teamwork and professionalism.

In the end, five out of the 20 teams qualified to compete in the state championship on Feb. 16 in Melbourne. They are: R2D2 Fire Droids, a team from Lakeland (the ones in the Jedi costumes); the Hammer Heads, from Winter Haven (pink hair); Team Mu (cowbells), from Tampa; Robochicks 6, a Girl Scout troop from Valrico; and the Energy Elite, from Riverview.

It's not easy getting the robots to behave, especially when Coldplay is blasting over the loudspeaker in the Armwood High School gym, and a dozen kids all wearing identical T-shirts are chanting loudly at your back:

Put the LIME in the COCONUT and SHAKE IT ALL UP

Put the LIME in the ROBOT and let it GO GO GO

Robots break, veer off course, miss their targets. A 9-year-old boy's hands clench the air in frustration. Back in the cafeteria, a.k.a. the "Pit area," kids are snacking on Skittles and doughnuts, running their robots through practice drills.

Steven Jackson, 14, from Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland, is sighting along the ground, trying to set his robot on the right course, like a pool shark setting up a three-rail bank shot.

"You have to get the right angle, everything," he said. "You got to do it so you make no mistakes."

Jackson is a football player, but he prefers robotics.

"With football, you get that rush," he said. "But here, you're trying to compete with knowledge."

Behind him, a team of kids walks by, cowbells clanking. Then the Gadget Girls see their score, and start to shriek.

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 661-2442.

[Last modified January 12, 2008, 22:46:22]