Boston Regional 2007

[ChristinaR]

The Boston Globe has an article on Boston on B1 today. Here it is online:
Robotic Battle Royale
If you don't have a login (or don't want to go on bugmenot.com to get one), here's the whole article:

Students compete in ultimate fight with remote-controlled machines
By Brian R. Ballou , Globe Staff | March 25, 2007

There was the roar of a Super Bowl crowd, the frenzy of a NASCAR pit stop, and the costumes of a Mardi Gras celebration on Bourbon Street. The stage looked like an Ultimate Fighting Championship ring.

But instead of fist-flinging action, the competition in Boston University's Agganis Arena yesterday featured teams of high school students from throughout New England in a battle royale of remote-controlled robots they had designed and built from scratch.

The students, dressed in tie-dyed capes, whimsical hats, and other getups, used joysticks to command their robots from behind clear partitions in a game that involved using the machines' mechanical arms to pick up plastic inner tubes and place them on steel pins.

Organizers said about 5,000 people, including 50 high school teams, attended the three-day event, the second annual Boston For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Regional Robotics Competition .

Fans stood on their feet, waving pom-poms, yelling challenges to fans of other teams, and pounding noisemakers to the beat of rock music.

"These kids really know each other, and they do strategize a lot on how to build machines that will give them the best chance to win," said Marc Hodosh , the chairman of the event.

Schools were grouped in "alliances," whose robots fought together to hang the red and blue inner tubes on the steel pins to score points and prevent the other side from scoring.

"Nobody can match our defense," said Devin Anderson, 18, a senior at Shrewsbury High School, seconds after the robot of his team, the "Duct Tape Bandits," pounded relentlessly on the machine of the Bridgewater Raynham Regional High School team . But defense was not enough as Anderson's alliance was eliminated from the competition.

The overall winner of the competition was an alliance made up of students from Boston Latin School, Brookline High School, Quincy High School, and Clinton High School. The team will now challenge for the national championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on April 12.
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There is also a photo gallery here

Has anyone seen anything else?