Archive: Around Town

Robots took over the second floor of Lansing High School Friday, competing to see which was best at performing three key tasks.  It was the culmination of a week-long robotics camp offered by the Lansing Town Recreation Department, and run by members of the high school robotics team.  65 fourth through eighth graders designed, built and programmed the robots in only five days before putting them through their paces Friday.

"I am impressed with how much they have been able to do," camp leader Emily Schweitzer says.  "I think to myself, at this age would i have been able to program a robot that can go through a maze all by itself?  I'm not so sure.  It's neat to watch them figure out how different gears fit, and how (doing it another way) affects it.  In one week, they did it all."

Schweitzer joined the robotics team after it was criticized by judges at an early competition because they were an all-male team.  She had an interest in robotics so when a friend told her about the team during a biology class, she jumped at the chance to join.  The team competed three or four times each year.  Graduating from Lansing High School in June, she plans to major in chemistry in college, but says she would enjoy pursuing robotics if time allows.  With prior camp experience she mapped out a plan for the camp, then presented it to the Town Recreation Department.  Recreation Director Steve Colt says he was enthusiastic about it, and his staff had to turn kids away after they overbooked what was supposed to be a 20-child camp.

"I'm pleased and proud we were able to do this thing," says Colt.  "It's another, different type of activity that helps us to diversify our Rec offerings.  Who knows?  The next great engineer might be standing in this room with us."


Members of the robotics team ran the camp, with a high school robotics team member working with each camp team.  Schweitzer and her teammates began planning the camp around January, and this helped their team in competitions.

"They designed what we were going to do every day," Lansing High School physics teacher Andrea Schnieder says.  She advised the camp and during the school year advises the high school team.  "They planned all the activities, figured out exactly what they were going to do and how to do it."

"The camp is one of the things we highlighted when we would go to judges interviews at the competitions," Schweitzer says.  "It's one of the things that won us the Motivate Award.  They were trying to figure out how to get young people excited about this."


Each day 26 campers arrived at 9am.  They spent a lot of the time building and programming their robots, but the sessions were broken up with games and activities.  The camp borrowed a special edition of Lego Mindstorm kits from Cornell Systems Engineering to build the robots from.

"They use them for their graduate students," Schnieder says.  "These three challenges were actually an orientation project done by the graduate students.  We simplified the scoring, but other than that it's the same challenge.  If any of the kids decide to go into engineering they may see these again some day."


After the four days of brainstorming, building and programming their robots, campers were raring to go.  Friday was the 'official' unveiling of the robots, and the competition began.  Each robot had to meet three challenges.  First, they had to successfully traverse a maze in the least amount of time.  The second challenge was for the robots to sort colored objects within four minutes, staying within a designated playing area.  The third challenge required each robot to drive up a ramp and deposit a golf ball into a can.  There were extra points for more complicated solutions.

Some of the kids had played with this kind of equipment before, but it was new to others.  The kits contain both the software and hardware to create customizable, programmable robots.  They could be controlled using remote controls, but could also be programmed to be autonomous.  For example you could put an object in front of a robot and it would know to scoop it up or move it in some way.  The different teams approached the challenges differently, some with programming and others using the remote control.


"There are a couple that look the same," says Schneider.  "But some were completely different.  We've got one we call the 'Harley Bat Bike' because it's a combination of a motorcycle and the Batmobile."

By the end of the day the Yellow Team had taken 1st place.  The Blue team won Best Engineering Notebook winners.  3rd place and Best Design went to the Green team, and the Red team came in 4th and and won Best Code.

Impressively, especially for such a large group of children, the teams were enthusiastic and focused as they ran their robots from task to task.

"It's a full day camp, and look at them," Lansing Recreation Director Steve Colt marveled.  "They're very organized, everybody's engaged.  You couldn't ask for more."

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