Kids Gearing up for Robot Contest
Schools have 6 weeks to get robots moving

January 8, 2007
by Jenny Hurwitz
The Times Picayune

As a boy, James Despenza had a knack for dismantling lawnmowers and rebuilding them, piece by piece.

"I just like breaking stuff up and putting it back together," he said.

James, 17, was drawn to his high school's fledgling robotics team, a club that offered a chance to showcase his unusual talents in an equally unusual setting.

"And I want to get involved in auto mechanics," said James, a junior at Edna Karr High School in Algiers. "This'll give me a feel for it."

James' introduction to robotics began with a bang Saturday morning, when he and several hundred students, teachers and mentors from Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Tennessee descended on NASA's Stennis Space Center, near Bay St. Louis, Miss., to kick off this year's FIRST Robotics Competition.

Organizers, broadcasting live from Manchester, N.H., unveiled the rules of the game to an eager audience packed inside the Stennis visitor center's auditorium. Some students gripped video cameras to record the announcement as it came across the screen.

This year's task: to create a robot that can pluck inflatable inner tubes from the floor and hang them on a jiggling, 10-foot-tall rack, all while competing against other robots, which are battling across the arena to do the same.

The game, dubbed "Rack 'n' Roll," is further complicated by a complex scoring system and a raft of restrictions and rules laid out in the competition's online manual.

Teams, consisting of students and professional mentors, received kits containing the materials and software needed to build a basic robot. They will all meet in New Orleans in March for the regional contest.

While students seemed invigorated by the challenge, the kickoff also marked the start of a grueling six-week stretch during which teams will pool their brainpower, strategize, sweat and struggle to execute a winning design.

Last year, the Covington High School team worked after school and on weekends, said Richard Otis, 17. As the deadline drew near, he asked permission to skip a day's classes, opting to spend 12 hours straight working on the robot.

"I don't even think I went to lunch," he said.

While most students anticipate an exhausting six weeks, excitement seemed the prevailing emotion at Saturday's kickoff.

"I think it's going to be harder than before," said Devin Green, 16, a returning competitor from Eleanor McMain High School in New Orleans. "But I think it's going to be fun."

Originally devised to spur young people's interest in science and technology, FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, began humbly in 1992 with 28 teams competing in a New Hampshire high school gym.

The program has expanded dramatically since then. This year, more than 1,300 teams will face off during the robotics competition's "build season," capped off by a championship event in April in Atlanta.

The popularity of high school robotics has surged in Louisiana, although the change came about only recently.

For years, the state counted only one high school among the program's growing list of competitors. The tide began to turn in 2005, when five Louisiana schools entered. The number continued to climb last year, despite Hurricane Katrina.

This year, 17 high school teams from Louisiana will compete, including 12 from the New Orleans area. Organizers attribute the increase to stepped-up recruiting efforts and a $284,000 NASA grant aimed at Louisiana and Mississippi schools.

"This is about creating good scientists for the future," said Katie Wallace, a FIRST coordinator with NASA. "They're another generation of scientists, computer programmers and engineers."

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Jenny Hurwitz can be reached at jhurwitz@timespicayune.com or (985) 645-2848.