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Unread 18-04-2002, 15:03
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part 2
Both First and BattleBots IQ, the high school and middle school tournament based on the television show, promote robot-building as an educational and enriching team-building experience. But while First's founders design games that require robots to perform tasks like scooping up balls and pushing wheeled bins, the goal in BattleBots is to pound one's opponent into inoperability. "It's what kids want to do," said Trey Roski, a co-founder of BattleBots. "They want to fight. It's instinctual."
For Dr. Flowers, that premise is troubling. "Philosophically, I worry about celebrating killing the other thing," he said. He coined the term "gracious professionalism" to inculcate in First participants a sense of the importance not just of winning but of helping other teams along the way too.
The two robotic-battle organizers seem to be girding for a rumble of their own for the loyalty of high school students and teachers, as BattleBots IQ outlines plans to grow from 17 schools in its inaugural season to 50 next year and wraps up a deal with the WB Network to create a television show featuring the students' robots.
First also hopes to keep expanding, with a goal of eventually reaching every high school in the nation. The plan involves a simpler kit that would enable first-year teams to build a competitive robot in less time, and a made-for-TV movie about the program that would be broadcast on ABC's "Wonderful World of Disney." The movie will star Noah Wylie of "E.R." as a teacher who supervises a First team at an inner-city school in California.
At the First regional competition at the New Haven Coliseum, the crowd's energy level rivaled that of a homecoming football game. But to the uninitiated, what transpired on the field was as opaque as a livestock auction. The cooperative aspect started with the pairings: in each match, two schools were assigned to combine forces on either side. The pairs of robots, the red team and the blue team, began the two-minute match in opposite end zones. Operated by students from behind a clear plastic barrier, the robots scurried toward three rolling bins in the center of the field and tried to fill the bins with soccer balls lined up on either edge of the field. Then they would try to drag the bins into designated "scoring zones" and return to the end zone.
Points were awarded to the team that put the most balls into the bins, pushed the most bins into their scoring zones and returned the most robots to their end zone. The catch was that when the match was over, the winning team was awarded three times the points that the losing team had scored. This was to discourage blowouts, and it was not unusual to see a team that had pulled far ahead helping score points for the opponent.
Loud pop music surged over the Coliseum's public-address system. Students had painted their faces and dyed their hair in their team colors, and they handed out buttons promoting their robots. Dr. Flowers, who served as the competition's master of ceremonies, wore a small ponytail and a khaki vest festooned with buttons given to him by students. A large video screen and a play-by-play announcer kept the audience informed on what was happening in each match. When fumes from Robot No. 293 indicated distress, the announcer exclaimed, "They're smoking — and this is a no-smoking venue!"
Before and after a match the students would huddle around their robots in the pit area, trying to figure out why balls were getting stuck or why their robot had failed to respond to commands. At a previous event, "our belts got stretched out and the tower got jammed," said Synthia Lux Tonn, the driver on the Middletown High team. "But it seems to be working better this weekend." Ms. Tonn, a senior, said that building robots was "more interesting than problem sets, because it's applying what you know." She plans to attend M.I.T. in the fall.
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