The robots are back.
Teams of high school students from all over New England are in Manchester this weekend competing to be the regional robotics champions.
NHPR Correspondent Ellen Grimm has the story.
At the Verizon Wireless Arena, hundreds of high school students wearing goggles and in some cases crazy hats are assembling and fine-tuning their robots.
They’re here for the New England region’s FIRST robotics competition.
Their goal is to maneuver their robots around a race course, gaining bonus points for crossing finish lines and herding and lifting 40-inch balls onto and over a 6 -foot tall overpass.
The winners will travel to Atlanta in April for what has become an international event.
AMBIANCE of Merrimack team searching for right-sized tool.
Justin McGarry is a senior at Merrimack High School.
He was fiddling with tubing and metal parts on his team's robot, which looks a bit like giant erector set.
He already sounds like an engineer.
MCGARRY: The bars and stuff -- it's really stock material that we model in a CAD application. Then we create drawings and send them to a machine shop. They fabricate them. So everything that not pretty much electronics or motors is original parts.
All teams receive the same kit of 422 parts.
No instructions included.
The teams have six weeks to assemble their robots.
These projects can cost thousands of dollars, and teams rely heavily on sponsors.
The robots also have to go through inspection.
AMBIANCE: Sounds of inspector asking questions about a robot.
They must meet a weight requirement, and at last check the Merrimack High School robot was a bit heavy.
So they may have to get rid of some parts.
And Justin McGarry says he’s become attached to the project.
McGarry: It is my friend, and its name is Atlas this year. We figured Atlas, sort of like holding the globe, sort of holding the huge ball in front of us. We actually built two robots this year. This is the better, competition ready one.
Jessica Morissette of Concord High School had just drawn the short straw.
That means she’s got to climb into a bulky yellow outfit that looks like a hazardous materials suit.
Since the original mascot of her team hadn’t made it, Morisette has to fill in as Tidal Force.
Though she’s dressed like her team’s robot, Morrissett and her friend Kody Blair also stand out, because the teams are overwhelmingly male.
Blair says it was hard to recruit fellow girls to join the team.
BLAIR: They think it's kind of geeky but it's really not. They think, 'Oh my gosh a robot how geeky how geeky can that club get -- they're all about Star Wars, and that's so gross.' There's so much more to it than just the actual robot, though that is a huge part.
The members of the Dragons team of Hartford, Connecticut had to do more than build a robot.
They had to learn a new language.
Some of the team's members are from the American School of the Deaf.
Tyrell Jones is a junior from the University High School of Science and Engineering in Hartford.
Sign language he says has gotten a bit easier for him.
JONES: We just learned the letters. We tried to spell it out with the letters, and then we learned our numbers and stuff like that. Ellen: What are some of words you had to spell out for your friends? TYRELL: Like, gear box, wheels, electrical things like that.
The Merrimack High School team, hard at work on the finishing touches, had a final detail to nail down.
They had to come up with the team's official name.
WOMAN TEACHE: Official team name: Is it BAE systems Merrimack High School Chop Shop 166? BOYS VOICES DISCUSSION: I think so. I think it's Merrimack High School and BAE Systems. It's BAE Systems... BAE Systems comes first. The sponsor always comes first. WOMAN: All right. You got that?
The FIRST competition ends on Saturday afternoon.
For NHPR News, I'm Ellen Grimm in Manchester.
