Robot battles geared to learning

A few years ago, Gracie Conrad didn't know a lick about building robots.

But since the Harrison High School junior joined the Harrison Boiler Robotics team, she's seen how science, technology, and life skills merge.

"It's an amazing mental challenge, and when you put blood, sweat and tears into a robot for six weeks and then you watch it go out and compete -- it is so completely exciting," she said Friday during the seeding matches of the Boilermaker Regional of the FIRST Robotics Competition at the Purdue Armory. The finals are today.

FIRST, an acronym for "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology," is an organization dedicated to inspiring in students an appreciation for science and engineering.

"Research shows younger students today ... aren't doing well in math and science," said Dan Somerville, Purdue engineering outreach coordinator. "We do this to get them plugged in."

Somerville said students involved in FIRST generally are, or become, college-bound.

"It is a benefit if you are going to a four-year or two-year year technical school," he said. "It opens up so many possibilities for them."

Each team works from a standard set of parts to build a robot designed to solve a common problem, which changes each year.

For this year's competition teams had six weeks to build and design robots and the computer programs that control them. The robots are programmed to collect balls and toss them into trailers attached to opposing teams' robots while racing around a track covered with plastic to replicate the low-gravity surface of the moon.

Thirty-five teams from Midwest schools -- including several in Greater Lafayette -- are taking part in Boilermaker Regional, which at times seems more like a rock 'n' roll concert than a science and engineering event.

"I love the competition," said Nitesh Bajaj, a West Lafayette High School junior on the Westside Boiler Invasion team. "The competitions are bigger than any of the basketball games that I've been to."

A robot built by Bajaj, Mark Krutulis and more than a dozen others features a roller near the floor rotating at a faster speed than the robot moves so it can collect balls as it passes by them.

Krutulis said FIRST has give him an edge for college, which he may start at age 16. He already knows his way around tools and has an understanding of how business and management are entwined with science.

Andrea Pluckebaum, a Purdue industrial engineering junior, is director of the Westside Boiler Invasion team. Students have blossomed in the program, she said, from learning to socialize better to mastering time management skills.

She said she's benefited from volunteering, which has taken up 25 to 30 hours a week since January.

"When I started school, I knew the tooling, the lingo," she said. "Just already knowing the BOM acronym -- bill of materials -- put me ahead."

Jefferson High School senior Joe Snedden said the techniques he has learned through FIRST has put him right on track.

"I start Purdue in the fall," he said. "And I want to make prosthetic body parts. I want to make robotic eyes so blind people can see."

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