Squat, angular and painted duct-tape gray, it would never be mistaken for a dream car at the auto show. But then, it was never meant to be a thing of beauty.
It was designed instead to perform the seemingly simple task of picking up and transporting a half dozen tennis balls from Point A to Point B, all without hands-on human intervention.
Dubbed Warbot, the two-wheeled machine was the creation of the 20 7th and 8th graders of the robotics club at Woodstock’s Northwood Middle School. It also proved to be one of the best in the BEST competition staged Saturday at Round Lake High School.
BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology), is a not-for-profit program designed to get middle and high school students interested in technology by hosting an annual robotics competition.
While team member Kenneth Hefner put Warbot through its paces during a demonstration at the school, 8th-grade physics teacher Jeff Norman explained that each team is issued an identical kit of odds and ends with which to design and build a machine to perform a specific task.
“We get plywood, plastic tubing, fasteners, dowel rods, PVC pipe–lots of odds and ends,” Norman said. The kits also include motors and radio controllers so the robots can be operated by remote control. “We can only use what they send us. Adding anything else is strictly forbidden.”
Saturday’s BEST contest drew eight Chicago area high schools and four middle schools, which puts the middle schools at a disadvantage, Norman said. “The high schools have shops and power tools. These kids had to work with the tools in my tool box.”
Each team is limited to six weeks to build its machine, and the Northwood team was progressing smoothly for the first five, according to club president Chanay Pirro. Then disaster struck.
A week before the competition, “we found out that our original design wouldn’t work when we tried it out on the actual course,” Pirro said. “We had to totally redesign the whole thing. It was the hardest week we had. But we learned to work together as a team. It was a good hands-on experience.”
Although the second design did not work exactly as planned, it was still good enough to be named runner-up behind Fremd High School for the BEST Trophy, which recognizes sportsmanship, teamwork, creativity and enthusiasm. The team also finished eighth overall in actually completing the prescribed mission, beating out two middle schools and two high schools in the process.
