New school students take robots competition-Seacoastonline.com

KENNEBUNK — the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, NH, was the setting for the annual first Robotics regional competition of 3-5 March. The new School of Almere, with the support of Pratt and Whitney, Lockheed Martin and Fairchild Semiconductor, placed fourth overall of 52 teams, and first under Maine's five schools in the League.Firstly, which stands for for inspiration and recognition of science and technology, is a global contest for high school students given the task to build a robot to specific tasks during matches. The theme this year was Logo Motion, and two competing alliances of every three robots tried to hang plastic shapes on a grid in timed matches. Teams get just two minutes and 15 seconds to compete in each match, and the first 15 seconds had to be programmed in the robots, allowing for full automation is independent of the direction of the driver.Of the New School Ross Kearney started the school team three years ago with only three students to participate. This year the team consisted of the 13 students, or almost half of the student body, nine of whom were able to travel to compete.Kearney, the experience with first started when he was attending Bonny Eagle High School in Standish. Now a teacher at the New School, he has his experience and enthusiasm for the Robotics program to its students.Robotics Team Member and student Devon gross said, "it changed my life, I wanted to be an actor and now I want to be an engineer."Kearney talked about the camaraderie and support between the secondary schools compete of Maine, and how they worked together to organize transport, meals and lodging.Teams were given six weeks to build a robot with specific parameters of the size and function so organization was instrumental in completing the task. This year the competition was particularly challenging because it required a second "mini robot" to ride on top of the main robot. The task of the "minibot" was a vertical pole climb to start a sensor at the end of every game.Of the New School "minibot" was rated the fastest and most consistent of the competition. The team won an Industrial Design Award and most new Robot enhanced, garnering positive comments from the judges.The new School Robotics Team created a Facebook page to commemorate and to share their experiences and inspire the participants next year.
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