Robots rule for kids in UCD contest
Students compete to engineer the best devices.
By Edie Lau -- Bee Science Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, March 6, 2005
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Lisa Marie Williams had never given any particular thought to building a robot. She doesn't even follow the exploits of the rovers on Mars. The freshman at St. Francis High School in east Sacramento just thought it sounded like fun to be part of a robotics club.

That's how she ended up at a robot competition held Saturday at UC Davis in an arena filled with noise, zeal and electronic parts.

The event was one of 30 regional competitions across the nation organized by FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, founded by the inventor of the Segway Human Transporter, Dean Kamen, in 1989.

The competition in Davis drew 37 teams from around the country and Canada; a team can enter any regional competition it likes in its quest to make the finals in Atlanta next month.

Teams from five area high schools joined in: Davis, Elk Grove, Granite Bay, Jesuit and St. Francis.

Three local teams - Elk Grove, Jesuit and St. Francis - made it into the finals Saturday.

Top honors went to teams from Atherton and San Jose in the Bay Area, and Michigan.

Each team built its robot from the same kit of parts provided by FIRST. The job had to be done within six weeks. The results were not the stuff of Hollywood. There were no humanoids; no "Star Wars"-style whistling R2-D2 units.

In appearance, the robots were more along the lines of rovers used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to explore Mars: platforms on wheels with telescoping necks, shaped, very roughly speaking, like lawn mowers.

Also, the competition among the robots was meant to be friendly. None of that rock 'em, sock 'em stuff. Teams whose robots knocked over their opponents could be penalized.

The robots competed by playing a game. This year's game required robots to hang wire pyramids, or tetrahedrons, on any of nine goal posts that were arrayed on a tick-tack-toe-style grid.

You got points for claiming the most goals, for claiming a row of goals and for having robots back in the end zone by the end of a two-minute, 15-second match.

Williams, the St. Francis freshman, said the event was as exciting and interesting as she had anticipated. Over the roar of rock music spun by a DJ, she said, "It's cool to see the different ways people have (designed their robots) to complete the same task."

The Sacramento area has been the site of regional FIRST robotics competitions three years now, originally at Cal Expo and now at UC Davis, which kicked in $25,000 as a sponsor.

It's an expensive endeavor. Richard Sanko, the volunteer coordinator, said the regionals cost $165,000 to put on. In addition, each school team must pay $6,000 to participate.

But there's plenty of payback in the students' enthusiasm and talents, said Sanko, a professional aircraft mechanic.

"These kids are so pumped, drugs wouldn't affect them," he said. "These are the kids who will grow up to be the engineers, the scientists, the doctors. That's what this is all about."

Interviews with some of the students bear him out. Patrick McGinnis, a 17-year-old senior from Elk Grove High who has been part of his school's robotics team since it was established three years ago, said it has shaped his plans for a career. "I decided to be a mechanical engineer," McGinnis said.

His teammate, Sheila Todd, a 17-year-old junior, was similarly inspired. "I want to be an aeronautical engineer at NASA and come back and sponsor FIRST," she declared.