Local News
FIRST competition: High school students demonstrate robots at KEDA session
By GARRETT NEESE, DMG Writer
POSTED: May 15, 2008
HOUGHTON — High school students in the FIRST Robotics competition showed off their latest creation at the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance meeting Wednesday.
Two members of the Houghton High School team as well as their student advisor from Michigan Technological University were on hand to present their robot, which competed recently at a regional competition in Milwaukee. Teams from Chassell and Calumet also competed.
Seventeen students take part in the Houghton team, aided by 10 MTU mentors and two advisors at the high school.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) is a non-profit founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen in 1989. The non-profit organization is designed to inspire excitement about science and technology, as well as instill a sense of “gracious professionalism” in students.
“We can go out there and compete with them, but when they’re having trouble, we help them,” said Houghton student Travis Wakeham.
Teams receive a bucket of parts in January from which they build a functioning 100-plus pound robot for that year’s game. There are price and material limits, as well as a pressing time limit: six weeks.
To meet that deadline, the team meets for three hours a day, Monday through Saturday.
“We’re here a lot,” Wakeham said.
Each year’s competition varies. This year’s game was “FIRST Overdrive,” in which robots must race around a track. Bonus points can be gained by pushing a trackball around, as well as lifting or shooting it over a barrier. It included both hybrid periods, in which they are controlled by pre-written routines and remote signals, and teleoperated periods in which the students have complete control.
The teams splinter off into sub-teams, which handle tasks such as mechanical work, computer-assisted design, and public relations.
The competitions, while friendly, are spirited, Wakeham said.
“We cheer really loud for a small team,” he said. “We face-paint, we color our hair. We get pretty wild.”
Adam Coursin, Tech’s lead student mentor for Chassell, said students can apply the lessons they learn towards fields of work.
“What this program does for them is make them see ... they have the potential to become engineers and scientists,” he said.
In their offseason, the team does activities in the community, such as helping elementary school Lego League teams, as well as fundraising for the team.
Wakeham said team sponsors would get placement on the team’s shirt, robot and Web site, as well as a pool of potential employees: two-thirds of the students in the competition said they were interested in working for a sponsor company, he said.
For more information, go to http://www.team857.com/
Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese@mininggazette.com
Two members of the Houghton High School team as well as their student advisor from Michigan Technological University were on hand to present their robot, which competed recently at a regional competition in Milwaukee. Teams from Chassell and Calumet also competed.
Seventeen students take part in the Houghton team, aided by 10 MTU mentors and two advisors at the high school.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) is a non-profit founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen in 1989. The non-profit organization is designed to inspire excitement about science and technology, as well as instill a sense of “gracious professionalism” in students.
“We can go out there and compete with them, but when they’re having trouble, we help them,” said Houghton student Travis Wakeham.
Teams receive a bucket of parts in January from which they build a functioning 100-plus pound robot for that year’s game. There are price and material limits, as well as a pressing time limit: six weeks.
To meet that deadline, the team meets for three hours a day, Monday through Saturday.
“We’re here a lot,” Wakeham said.
Each year’s competition varies. This year’s game was “FIRST Overdrive,” in which robots must race around a track. Bonus points can be gained by pushing a trackball around, as well as lifting or shooting it over a barrier. It included both hybrid periods, in which they are controlled by pre-written routines and remote signals, and teleoperated periods in which the students have complete control.
The teams splinter off into sub-teams, which handle tasks such as mechanical work, computer-assisted design, and public relations.
The competitions, while friendly, are spirited, Wakeham said.
“We cheer really loud for a small team,” he said. “We face-paint, we color our hair. We get pretty wild.”
Adam Coursin, Tech’s lead student mentor for Chassell, said students can apply the lessons they learn towards fields of work.
“What this program does for them is make them see ... they have the potential to become engineers and scientists,” he said.
In their offseason, the team does activities in the community, such as helping elementary school Lego League teams, as well as fundraising for the team.
Wakeham said team sponsors would get placement on the team’s shirt, robot and Web site, as well as a pool of potential employees: two-thirds of the students in the competition said they were interested in working for a sponsor company, he said.
For more information, go to http://www.team857.com/
Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese@mininggazette.com
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