When Gloucester High School's entry in the Boston FIRST robotics competition burst into flames last week, it spelled doom for its chances of winning the 51-team contest, but presented coach Kurt Lichtenwald with a valuable teaching opportunity.
"Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong," Lichtenwald said this week. "But it turned out to be a good experience because we had to rebuild the robot three times."
Although Gloucester's finish in the 30s did not earn it a trip to Atlanta for the U.S. FIRST national finals, Lichtenwald said his students did come home with the Judge's Award for Curiosity-Driven Program, a distinction awarded for the wide variety of robotics projects the team is involved in and the amount of student participation.
"At least we came home with a trophy," Lichtenwald said.
The Boston event was a regional competition in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology series of robotics contests, which have grown in popularity and prominence among school systems all over the country as a way to teach science and engage students in engineering at the same time.
Last week's competition, Friday and Saturday at the Agganis Arena at Boston University, drew schools from six states and around 5,000 people.
Students designed, built and piloted the robots battling in the contest, which were divided into teams. The task involved picking up and transporting large plastic balls and placing them on an elevated rack while trying to prevent machines from other teams from doing the same.
Lichtenwald said faulty wiring led his team's robot to catch fire and students also had to change the machine's complex rack-and-pinion steering system, which had difficulties on carpeted sections of the course.
The other Cape Ann team at the event, Manchester Essex Regional High School, fared better in the competition, even though it didn't bring home any trophies. The team made it to the semifinals, finishing 11th overall, suffering from a judge's ruling on whether one of the competitors had scored, which kept it from advancing to the finals.
"We missed the finals by one ball, a flip of the coin," John Chiffer, coach of the Manchester Essex team, said yesterday. "The kids' engineering skills and camaraderie were fantastic. What really impressed me was their ability to work under pressure."
Chiffer said while his team's robot held up well, repair skills and students' ability to deal with things going wrong was as much a part of the winning formula as great design or construction. The Manchester Essex robot broke a pincer claw and had other damage, Chiffer said.
Students had mentioned a brewing rivalry before the event, but both coaches yesterday said the proximity of the two teams was more likely to bring them together them apart.
Robots from both teams are still in Boston waiting to be shipped home.
When the Manchester Essex machine arrives, it is scheduled to visit an April meeting of the School Committee before going on display, Chiffer said.
The Gloucester robot will compete in another competition at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in May before visiting groups that had sponsored the team.
Lichtenwald said retired competition robots are usually put out to pasture after each year's events, but he hoped this year's machine could be kept around.
"Last year we had to dissect it to make this year's robot," Lichtenwald said. "We hope to keep this year's around so that next year's kids can learn from it and practice driving it."
Patrick Anderson may be contacted at panderson@gloucestertimes.com.
