Mechanically minded
Area robotics students compete in AtlantaBy WALTER C. JONES
Morris News ServiceATLANTA – Don’t tell the 7,000 teens who met in Atlanta for the national robotics championship that science isn’t cool. They know otherwise.
The high school teams – including teams from Holland, Holland Christian and West Ottawa high schools – had six weeks to design, build and learn to control their own robots before the series of matches on the floor of the Georgia Dome this weekend. Some of the kids are also varsity athletes who would have never made it to the site of a Super Bowl any other way.
But the travel, TV cameras, scholarships and chanting crowds are just the icing on the cake for most. The real attraction was more down to earth.
“You learn a lot and you make so many friends,” said Nate Timmer, a student at Holland Christian School, on his third year participating.
Holland Christian had the highest finish of local teams, placing 10th in the Newton Division. Holland High finished 23rd in the Curie Division and West Ottawa placed 48th in the Galileo Division.
The event is about much more than awards.
“I’m kicking myself for not joining as a freshman,” said Holland Christian senior John Molenhouse.
It also launches careers.
“It’s changed my career path,” said Matt McNellay, a junior at Mountain Home (Ark.) High School. He was leaning toward medicine before discoveringhow interesting engineering can be.
The fascination isn’t just the infatuation of adolescence. Jim Bench, a mechanical engineer with Russell Technical Products in Holland returned to serve as a mentor to the Holland High team five years after graduating there.
“This FIRST program really introduced me to engineering,” he said during a break between matches when he was quizzing the students about math formulas. “And mentoring keeps my engineering sharp.”
The three-day contest, and the two-dozen regional competitions leading up to it, are sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). It was spawned 11 years ago by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway two-wheeled scooter and many medical devices.
When Kamen rolled through the pit area Friday, he was mobbed by more autograph seekers than Brittany Spears would have drawn.
“It kind of gives you that real-world experience – what you learn in school,” said Ashleigh Talman, a junior at West Ottawa High School.
To get to Atlanta, the students worked after school for hours each day in that six weeks.
In Jacksonville, Fla., students at William M. Raines High School meet immediately after school because they don’t have transportation in the evenings when teams at suburban schools meet, said Raines teacher Brad Paulson. Across town at Stanton College Preparatory School, the kids have their own cars and can meet when their mentors are off work at JEA, Vistakon and Rafferty Machine & Tool.
If the timing and long commitment makes recruiting mentors difficult at Raines, the stigma of science makes it hard to attract the kids.
“It’s kind of a geeky thing,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to get kids to join.”
But the skinned knuckles, computer bugs and financial disadvantages didn’t discourage Raines senior Phillip Hunt.
“Everything that steps in front of it, I feel we can conquer,” he said.
Inner-city students like Hunt aren’t the only fearless underdogs. Students from rural Sandersville, Ga., say they actually have an edge.
“A lot of us have a background working on our own tractor, working on our own cars,” said Brentwood School senior Greg Avrett of Sandersville. “If we hadn’t already had a rural background, we wouldn’t have had an advantage.”
Knowing how to tinker isn’t the only requirement for winning a match. It takes savvy – often gained from seeing what works on other teams and building on a foundation of experience.
West Ottawa’s Talman has been watching FIRST competitions since she was in the first grade when her brothers participated. Seeing how much fun it was, she couldn’t wait to join in three years ago.
“It never appeared to be a guy’s sport at all,” she said.
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