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High Schoolers, Robots Swarm Community College

Teams from the FIRST Robotics Competition spread the word about the design contest for young, technically minded students.

Six-foot, 120-pound mechanical constructs whir and click throughout the college center gymnasium at St. Charles Community College. The robots move swiftly, with purpose, piston-powered limbs handling and grabbing. Sophisticated, individually designed software drives the beasts forward.

Who’s behind this potentially postapocalyptic scene? Who else? High schoolers.

On Tuesday night, St. Charles Community College hosted a youth robotics showcase to promote local entrants into the FIRST robotics competition, a worldwide design contest for students interested in engineering.

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For six weeks beginning in January, high school-aged teams with budgets ranging from $6,000 to more than $100,000 compete to design, assemble and program robots that can execute specific tasks, which change every year. There are also leagues for younger kids to get a head start, like the LEGO League, ages 9-14, and the noncompetetive Junior LEGO League, ages 6-9. Smaller robots are on display, too, but the crowd is drawn to the heavy machinery.

This was high school freshman Ryan’s first year on his team, the Ratchet Rockers Team 1709, representing the Wentzville School District (every team is assigned a four-digit number). This year, the game involved picking up and arranging different shapes on tall pegs--it's the FIRST logo, actually. Ryan’s team did well at the regions and went on to place 34th worldwide at the international competition held at the Edward Jones Dome in April.

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“Three hundred teams were there. There were like 30 countries,” he said. “We got to talk to teams from Australia and the Netherlands.” Ryan said it was a good experience, even with the more than 30 hours weekly he and every student spends working on the project. They organize and subdivide into different teams, delegating responsibility. It’s a lot like a job. He wants to go into engineering when he’s out of high school.

Boeing engineer Mark Geerling said that’s pretty common. A lot of students go on to Missouri University of Science and Technology. Geerling is a volunteer with Ryan’s team, the Ratchet Rockers. Geerling stands over a piece of plywood upon which a naked steering mechanism is bolted. Boeing engineers assembled the board and their own starter kit robot to give demonstrations.

“A recycling robot,” Geerling said as the machine, stouter than most, moves in on a stray Coke can. A spinning sham cloth sweeps the can into a dustpan receptacle, which begins to rise past the paper and glass bins to separate a separate aluminum container. Then it stops.

“Well, when it works, anyway,” he said and laughed. The Boeing engineers didn’t get to spend quite as much time on their design as the high school teams do.

And it’s no task easy, he said. Boeing provides more than 150 teams nationwide with mentors, as well as a $6,000 grant to pay for entry fee and starter kit. And though everybody begins with the same package, if you’ve got the money, basically anything goes. The Ratchet Rockers spent about $30,000--money  mostly from local businesses, sponsors and donations--according to one team volunteer.

Deanna Cottrell is a parent volunteer with River City Robots, a team of students from throughout the St. Charles school districts. Her son was in the program for six years, she said, and still mentors. Her husband also volunteers. For her, it’s a family affair.

“It’s like, the funnest thing you can do with teenagers,” she said. Cottrell's River City Robots also went to the international contest this year on a rotating automatic bid. That means they didn’t technically qualify based on performance, and their budget of around $15,000 didn’t nearly match up. Some teams have entire tour busses, she said. But Cottrell said the resiliency and enthusiasm of her group amazed her.

“Cheering with them all day (at the competitions), it really makes you believe the world will be a better place,” she said.

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