Teams from Wisconsin and five surrounding states participate in

Daily Reporter (Milwaukee), Mar 12, 2007 by Sean Ryan

Andrew Jackson's spring-loaded claw was in bad shape after the first match.

The Marquette University High School team carried its robot back to the pit, where junior Eric Jonardi started patching up the claw with a soldering gun. Andrew had to be ready for the next match in a half hour, where it would square off against the Francis W. Parker School and Agape Werks' Mr. Roboto (team motto: Behold the turtle, he advances only when he sticks his head out!).

Marquette sophomore Josh Schroeder looked over the operation and discussed the strategy behind the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST, Robotics Competition. Bots, working in teams of three, score points by grabbing inner tubes and hanging them on a 10-foot-tall rack in the center of the arena. However, the big score is to have one bot drop its ramps near the end of the match and allow the other bots to roll on its back before time runs out. Fifty-two teams from Wisconsin and five surrounding states participated in the event at the U.S. Cellular Arena in Milwaukee.

"Most of the time if the teams get two bots on the ramp, they're going to win the competition," said Schroeder, whose team lost the first round after Prior Lake High School's bot unfolded, allowing its two teammates to roll on top and seal the win.

Finesse beats power

That happened after Andrew, which is husky at 119.9 pounds, went claw-to-claw with Prior Lake's KING robot and pushed it around a little.

"We're able to push a lot of other robots around because we have servos connected to a gear box so we can go into low gear," Schroeder said. "We pop it into low gear and push them out of the way."

The Prior Lake, Minn., team, bedecked in purple capes and plastic crowns, wasn't phased by Andrew's pushing power, said Dustin Passofaro. The KING bot's ramps were specially designed to unfold and pop open smoothly, and the ramp's surface was specially coated for added traction. It feels like sandpaper.

"Where we really shine is in the ramps," Passofaro said, after the team won its second match after one bot climbed on top of the KING. "They may be able to push us around, but we're really, really maneuverable."

By lunchtime on Friday, Prior Lake was undefeated and Marquette had no wins after two matches. Andrew Jackson, working with Brookfield East's team and Hartford Union High School's Bird of Prey, lost its second match 35-28.

Much preparation

The Marquette and Prior Lake teams both worked long nights after school and weekends for six weeks to prepare for the competition. Marquette made Andrew spar in the high school's third-floor gym against the Gumball Machine of Doom, Marquette's 2006 bot. The gumball machine won the 2006 mechanical design award. The team even built its own rack to practice with, Schroeder said.

"I don't know what we're going to do with that after this," he said. "It was six weeks of no sleep, basically."

The Prior Lake team had only 10 square feet of space to practice in since it operated out of a work shed in the backyard of Rob Viren, team pit manager and head of mechanical engineering.

"It was like a party every day, only there were robots there," Passofaro said.

The competition had the atmosphere of professional wrestling. The bots had names like the Robo Phoenix, Optimus Primal, Mr. Roboto and Inferno Flame, and lots of high schools brought mascots. There was a robin wearing a jet pack stomping around the arena, an apple core representing the Appleton Area School District and two yetis, one that seemed friendly and another with horns and big fangs being followed around by a penguin.

The FIRST Robotics Competition sponsors were NASA, GE Health Care, Rockwell Automation, George Mosher, Quad Graphics, the Milwaukee School of Engineering, the Milwaukee Area and Waukesha County technical colleges, Marquette University, M&I Bank and Bucyrus International.