IEWTD NERDS

Herald/Review

SIERRA VISTA — At midnight tonight, a FedEx truck will leave Sierra Vista carrying high-priority cargo from Fort Huachuca.

Bound for Phoenix, it takes along the hopes, sweat and devotion of the Buena Robotics Club, entering its first-ever regional competition against 50 other teams from around the country.

“The rules are very strict,” says coach Tom Heller, who teaches chemistry at the high school. “We have to prove that the robot was out of our hands by the deadline.”

And with only six weeks to assemble their entry, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that club members have been working all hours, weekends, and yes, even the President’s Day holiday. Interested parents bring food and moral support.

“They’re pretty keyed,” said Kent Cudaback, as the teens focused on re-assembling the robot after a serious scare on Saturday morning.

Cudaback, an engineer and mentor to the group, invited club president Thomas Brown to tell the story.

“We had it all put together, had tested it and put the skin on, and brought in a scale to weigh it,” explains Brown, a senior. “The limit is 120 pounds, and it weighed around 160.”

The robot, named “Megamaid,” (after a character in the Mel Brooks’ movie, “Spaceballs”) was put on an instant crash diet, with metal being sacrificed wherever possible. “We think we got it all without weakening the structure,” said Brown.

The students are competing in the 14th annual FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competition with 27,000 high schoolers in 1,100 teams participating nationally.

FIRST is a non-profit organization established in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen, and designs programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and motivation among young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math.

Teams receive identical kits in January, along with a manual of game rules and regulations.

This year’s challenge is to design a robot that will propel nine-inch diameter nerf balls through a “low” goal — worth one point each — or an eight-foot “high” goal, worth three points.

Teams choose whether to build a “low” goal or “high” goal machine, and have two minutes to score as many points as possible.

Some high schools have been competing since the program began, while this is Buena’s rookie year.

Said Heller, “They’ve done an amazing job. The quality of the work is excellent, especially for their first time out.”

The Buena effort is a clever combination of motors, rollers, software, a gyroscope, ultrasonic range finder, a potentiometer and other parts that move the balls through a variable-speed, serpentine route toward a ramp that leads to the goal.

“The kids did all the math and figured out the sprocket sizes and gear reduction,” said Cudaback. “Today we’re getting the bugs out.”

The work has been greatly helped along by the use of a fabrication shop and trailer on post, made available to the team by the Intelligence Electronic Warfare Test Directorate, where Cudaback and two other mentors are employed.

“The students arrive around 2:30 in the afternoon and they’d stay all night, if I let them,” he said. “Coach Heller and I remind them that their studies come first.”

“There were lots of ways to approach the challenge,” said Brown.

“We spent the first week coming up with drawings. I think we had about 20 designs.”

Having chosen the “low” goal route, the team is now intent on getting the newly slimmed-down Megamaid back together again in order for members to take her on a test drive before her date tonight with FedEx.

“We don’t know yet who’s going to actually operate it in Phoenix,” Brown added. “That’s why we’ll be doing the driving tests.”

As president of the club, Brown will choose who gets the honor.

Robotics Club members are hoping that one day Buena will offer a class in the subject for credit, although the six seniors in the group will by then have graduated.

Said Daniel Pressler, a sophomore who plans to major in mechanical engineering at USC, “It’s good these guys are here now to teach us what they know.”

The FIRST competition will be held March 9-10 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

The club also plans to attend another regional at the University of California, Davis, later in the month.