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Racing Into The Future

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By KATHY STEELE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 16, 2008

Updated: 02/14/2008 05:45 pm

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - Chalk tap, tap, taps on the board as Wendy Hou scrawls circles, angles and numbers in a search for the right equation.

Just how far does a robotic arm need to extend?

"Math is nice and theoretical and is supposed to work and somehow it doesn't," said Hou, an 18-year-old Hillsborough High senior and robotics team member. "It's a puzzle."

She and Khoi Tran, 16, looked for answers last week in a workshop where time ticks toward Tuesday, the deadline for crating and shipping a 5-foot-tall, 129-pound robot.

The so-far-unnamed robot is Hillsborough's entry in the fifth annual Palmetto Regional FIRST Robotics Competition at Clemson University in South Carolina on March 28-29. FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Personal Transporter.

Tran is the driver who will manipulate two joysticks to zip the robot around a track, grasp a large ball with the robot's arm and push the ball across the finish line - as fast and as often as possible.

"I'm handy with eye-hand coordination," Tran said.

The work is scientific and practical; the payoff is a wild, heart-pounding game as intense as Friday night football. About 40 teams from South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida will compete at Clemson for bragging rights and a trophy.

A national competition will be held April 17-19 in Atlanta's Georgia Dome.

"It basically boils down to your robot doing something faster or more efficiently than the other robots," Hillsborough senior Sarah Morrissey said. "It's like a sports competition."

Some teams bring cheerleaders and don outlandish wigs and costumes. T-shirts and hard hats, but no wigs, is the attire for Hillsborough.

The school's first robotics team kicked off with a push from senior Spencer Simonsen and math teacher Marian Manganello. Both are transplants from Middleton High School, which has had a robotics team for several years.

Many team members came from Hillsborough's engineering club.

Simonsen is a member of teams at Hillsborough and Middleton, which is also sending a robot to Clemson.

"I'm technically mentoring this team," Simonsen said of Hillsborough's rookies.

There are no restrictions on who joins, and teams often have members from more than one school. Middleton has helped out with tips and an occasional robotic part, and University of South Florida students offer their expertise.

High schools and colleges are encouraging more students to go into science and technology fields, Manganello said. There is concern that as baby-boom engineers retire there are too few ready replacements.

These competitions "teach them to be creative and innovative," she said. "It really gets them excited when they accomplish something."

The biggest struggle hasn't been figuring out the robot's reach but finding money. FIRST sent some materials for a 3-foot test robot, but students have to buy additional parts down to the nuts and bolts and the wood to crate up the robot.

Hillsborough donated space where students work after school and on weekends to complete the robot.

The $6,000 entry fee was paid with a grant from NASA. Students have raised about $2,300 but need $4,000 more to cover shipping costs as well as travel and lodging, Manganello said.

Donations have come from parents, teachers and muffin sales.

The good news is that if a team needs a replacement part during competition, other teams with more resources offer them at no charge. That's a lesson in "gracious professionalism," Manganello said.

Simonsen is a computer whiz who created a Web site, www.NoobsHelp.com, where students countywide can network to find help or tutor others on classwork.

Simonsen glommed onto science fiction literature and movies and a mechanical actor, Robbie the Robot in "Forbidden Planet." Inventions and the futuristic world sparked his imagination.

"I decided to choose robotics as a career path," said Simonsen, who is looking at Georgia Tech as a college choice.

Hou said most students on the team are considering math and science careers.

Her dream is an invention that makes tons of money, and then maybe a political career.

For information or to make a donation, e-mail Manganello at marian.manganello @sdhc.k12.fl.us.

Reporter Kathy Steele can be reached at (813) 835-2103 or ksteele@tampatrib.com.

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