Area students vie in robo-competition
By Gary McLendon
Staff writer
(April 22, 2004) — Students from Churchville-Chili, Webster Thomas and Webster Schroeder high schools combined efforts with a team from Michigan to post a strong showing at the FIRST Robotics competition in Atlanta.
Last weekend’s competition featured 72 teams from around the world. The Rochester-area schools had qualified for the international championship by winning a six-state regional in Cleveland in March involving 60 teams.
The For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) program focuses on engineering and design. Students apply mathematical, scientific and technological principles to create a robot, with the robots tested for such actions as their ability to retrieve a ball thrown by a human.
The competition is structured like the NCAA college basketball tournament, in that teams compete in four regional brackets and win their way to the finals. Nearly 300 teams participated in the competition at the regional level.
The alliance among Churchville-Chili, the Webster schools and Milford, Mich., came within one win of reaching the finals.
“I think the most exciting thing about it is we partnered with Webster,” said instructor Craig Coon, who with instructor Jason Rees coordinated the Churchville-Chili team.
About 175 students, parents, sponsors and faculty members associated with the Webster and Churchville-Chili teams traveled to Atlanta for the event.
Bausch & Lomb Inc. is Churchville-Chili’s major sponsor. Xerox Corp. is a major sponsor of the Webster teams.
“They did just incredibly well,” said Ginny Cornyn, manager of community relations at Xerox. “It’s a wonderful program. It’s just fabulous to see kids so involved in something so positive.”
The overall winner at Atlanta was an alliance of teams from Hammond, Ind.; Raleigh, N.C.; and Goodrich, Mich.
FIRST was started by well-known inventor Dean Kamen in 1989 to inspire young people to pursue studies and careers in science, technology and engineering.
*I realize that there are errors in the article. We’re still trying to train the media out here. I wanted to share the article anyway. *