Huddled over their creation, armed with pliers and screwdrivers, high school students from Boston University Academy and the John D. O’Bryant School for Mathematics and Science put the finishing touches on the robot they spent the past six weeks creating with the help of BU students.
The unveiling of the robot took place yesterday at the Photonics Center, the only time the public will see the robot before it is shipped off to New Haven, Conn. There, it will compete for a spot in the national robot competition held by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology).
“One of the goals of FIRST is to make heroes out of the professionals and engineers in today’s world and have the kids look and aspire to that, instead of looking at sports players or actors as heroes,” said College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Stephanie Slezycki, the student team leader.
The team — whose name, Overclocked, references both a technical term and the team’s propensity for working around the clock — is made up of about 19 high school students. The students are aided by professional engineers, BU undergraduates and professors from CAS and the College of Engineering.
The workers have spent every day since Jan. 5 working on the robot so it can successfully compete in Connecticut.
Every year, each team is given a kit of parts and the rules of that year’s game. In this year’s game, each team is allied with another team, and the robots must push goals around a field and attempt to place soccer balls in the goals. Certain robots also try to steal robots from other teams, which is what BU’s robot is designed to do.
If successful, the robot, which is controlled by a joystick and moves up and down so it can capture other robots, will compete in the national competition at the end of April at Epcot Center in Florida.
However, funding for FIRST is limited. While there is enough money to send the team to New Haven, funds are insufficient to send the team to Florida, according to Gary Garber, an advisor and BU Academy teacher. In order to raise funds, the team will be raffling off a Parker guitar and a Playstation 2 in the George Sherman Union next week.
Garber said not many high schools provide their students with such a hands-on experience, saying this is one of the few programs that “gives a genuine engineering experience to pre-college students.”
The hands-on experience of the high school students helped as they exhibited technical knowledge in the handling of their robot.
Bryan Fishman, a BU Academy sophomore, said handling the robot helped him learn about a variety of different topics.
“It taught me a lot about engineering, mechanics and electrical programming that I didn’t know about before,” Fishman said.
The college students said they, too, benefited from the experience.
“I probably learned as much from the kids as they learned from me,” said Brandon Slanker, a College of Engineering freshman.
Slezycki, who participated in the event when she was in high school, said she preferred mentoring to actually playing on the team.
“In the past years when I was being mentored it was a great learning experience, but being a mentor myself was even better,” she said. “Everyday I couldn’t wait to come here and work with the kids. I was able to give them what was given to me in high school.”
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