Stacking their way toward the top

In its first year, the Hightstown High School robotics club impressed at a major competition.

By: David Pescatore
   PISCATAWAY — Team Mercury, Hightstown High School’s robotics club, made an impact in its debut at the 2003 FIRST Robotics Competition, April 3 through April 5.
   The team finished third out of 42 teams from the Northeast corridor and two additional teams from Brazil. Hightstown was the only rookie team to reach the semifinals.
   In its 12th year, the FIRST Robotics Competition, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, hosts nearly 800 teams in 24 competitions.
   Team Mercury came together in November after three years of planning and prodding by founding member Erik Cokeley, whose father Wayne is involved with the New Brunswick High School team. It wasn’t until Erik met computer science teacher Chris Gregory that the team got off the ground.
   "I thought this was fantastic," Mr. Gregory said. "This combines math, science, engineering and strategy."
   Mr. Gregory and the 15-member Team Mercury began drawing up blueprints for Quick Silver, named after the liquid property of mercury.
   After tweaking some miniature prototypes, called EduBots, Quick Silver was born measuring 36 inches by 30 inches and weighing 129.8 pounds, a screw or two under the competition maximum of 130 pounds. After some further fine-tuning of gear ratios, Quick Silver was ready to roll.
   When resting, Quick Silver looks like an aluminum box on wheels. When duty calls, pincers rise up from the center of the unit and wings extend from the sides, tripling its width and crate attacking capabilities.
   The atmosphere in Rutgers University’s Louis Brown Athletic Center is part NCAA Tournament, part Star Trek convention. The bleachers are packed with a couple thousand supporters, many in costume, most working some sort of noisemaker.
   On the floor of the arena, the Camden County Technical School team is running around dressed as Campbell’s Kids in honor of their sponsor. Trenton Central High School’s team is sporting a SpongeBob SquarePants motif. Most apropos is the Tunkhannock Area High School’s tote monster. This delightful monstrosity is the result of four of the game’s 21-gallon Rubbermaid totes being stacked up, glued together, and hollowed out so some poor soul can stand inside and shuffle his (hers? its?) feet to the house’s techno soundtrack.
   The teams are here to play Stack Attack. This year’s game requires robots to collect and stack plastic storage containers on their side of the 54- by 24-foot arena. The game changes annually. Teams are aware of the game rules and robot requirements before they register for competition, at least six months in advance.
   Matches consist of four teams working in pairs. Each team in the coalition shares the same score for the round.
   A 2-minute round begins with 29 containers stacked on a 2-foot high platform. On the perimeter, each team is given four totes to arrange as they please in the first 10 seconds. Base scores are calculated by taking the number of totes in the pair’s highest stack and multiplying that number by the remaining totes in the scoring area. A team with a stack of three totes and 10 additional containers in the scoring zone would net 30 points.
   Teams must decide if they want to stack their eight hand-placed crates and try to defend the tower, or spread them out in smaller two and three tote stacks.
   After the humans have placed their containers and leave the playing surface, the robots begin 15 seconds of autonomous mode. The drivers have no control of the robots during this time. Instead, they run preprogrammed routes usually designed to either knock over opposing stacks or attack the center totes, pushing them into the scoring zone.
   Drivers use remote control to direct the robots for the last 1:35. This time is used to collect as many points as possible while defending assaults from the other side.
   Teams are awarded 25 bonus points for each of their side’s robots resting on top of the platform at the end of the round.
   Erik, who is Mercury’s lead driver, said the true strategy comes in how much you allow your opponent to score.
   "Whichever team has more points gets their points plus twice the losing team’s points. You don’t want to shut anyone out. The losing team has to have points too."
   Mr. Gregory said that Quick Silver has pincers to pick up and stack boxes, but that the team was not doing that.
   "There doesn’t seem to be enough time to stack," he said.
   In the end, Team Mercury was put out of the competition by the same group that brought them in, Erik’s father’s team from North Brunswick Township High School.
   FIRST was founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen, creator of the IBOT stair-climbing wheelchair and the Segway personal scooter.
   This year’s championship was held in Reliant Park, home of the Houston Texans.