21 teams working on robots for competition at Southeast this month

After months of work, endless hours after school and a couple of long weekends, five students at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center took apart their robot and started over.

Danny McElreath said it is difficult to quantify the attempts to create and program a robot that can pick up and throw balls, among other tasks.

"Is there a number higher than infinity?" said McElreath, a senior at Cape Girardeau Central High School.

He and four other Central seniors make up one of 21 teams that will compete in the First Tech Challenge Competition at Southeast Missouri State University later this month. The WIRED Initiative of the Workforce Investment Board of Southeast Missouri provided $1,500 per team to buy robotic kits and start a new extracurricular activity. Faculty in the College of Industrial and Engineering Technology at Southeast provided technical support to keep students and their advisers on track.

"I think one of the big things is schools don't have the additional funding to support these kind of activities," said John Dudley, an instructor at the college.

When WIRED and Southeast announced the project, they expected to send fewer than 10 teams to the St. Louis competition in December. Their expected number more than doubled as 21 teams from throughout the region signed up -- too many to send to St. Louis but enough to warrant their own competition.

"The reality is, robots are cool," Dudley said.

He said there was some reluctance among teachers and students to approach the task, which includes building a robot and programming it. The task requires skills in mechanical, electrical and computer engineering, he said.

"There's some apprehensions," Dudley said. "They've never done it before and how do you begin?"

In the back of classroom 210, a vast room in the Career and Technology Center, five students worked over a table scattered with screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers and rubber bands.

"We're good at making a mess too," student Corey Fowler said.

Gears, metal, wheels and zip ties composed the robot. Strategically placed zip ties fed Wiffle balls through the bottom and up into a hopper where they shot out. With a few balls in the hopper, the machine jammed.

"The broad brush strokes are already done. We're just fine tuning it," said David Papendick, a teacher in the school's Project Lead the Way pre-engineering program.

The team was one of a few from the area that competed in St. Louis in December. Afterward they scrapped the project and started over.

"We just decided it was a lost cause," said adviser Collin Sheridan, also a pre-engineering teacher. The second time around the students made changes and are further ahead in programming, he said.

He said keeping morale high is a challenge but that the students are learning their fair share of troubleshooting skills.

"You have to keep trying to get it because you don't know the answer ahead of time," Sheridan said.

Thirteen teams from St. Louis will come to the competition at Southeast. The top two finishers will advance to the national competition in Atlanta in April.

"I think it was a combination of putting together the right program that was also cost-effective," said Janet Witter, manager of the WIRED Initiative.

Each year the robot's required tasks change, but the basic materials stay the same. Schools can reuse the kits and compete annually, she said.

WIRED also provided a $10,000 grant to Southeast faculty for training and implementation of the project. Dudley said he and other faculty members have been meeting with teams, some more than others, since they received the kits in September. Other participating schools include Chaffee, Scott City and Leopold.

Computer programming, he said, has been the biggest stumbling block.

"That can be a little daunting if you don't know what you're doing," he said.

The competition, which includes 34 teams, will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 27 at Southeast's Student Recreation Center.

abusch@semissourian.com

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