PLUMSTED – Their mission, which they excitedly chose to accept, was to build a robot out of Lego blocks and command it – electronically – to perform tricks.
The Ocean County Tech Prep Robotics Contest, held at Ocean County College, Toms River, on Nov. 30, was intriguing and fun for the team from New Egypt High School. Challenging? Yes. Easy. Hardly.
Six girls, all juniors, made up one of 24 participating teams. This was the second year in a row the high school joined in on the fun; in 2006, New Egypt High School sent a team made up of five boys and one girl. This year’s team members were Emily Gohde, Caitlin Kelleher, Lauren Siegelski, Lindsay Mann, Nicole Hominy and Jessie Bernstein.
The contest had two parts: the teams had to build a robot from a Mindstorm Lego kit. Then, using a laptop computer and prewritten software, the contestants had to control the robot in two challenges.
First, the girls had to make their new mechanical friend, whom they laughingly named McLovin, race twice around an oval track. The robot that had the fastest time was declared the winner.
The New Egypt team, sadly, did not do as well as it might have liked. McLovin wasn’t lovin’ the challenge.
“The first time out we had to press a button to make the robot go in a circle,” Emily explained. “We hit the wrong button and it didn’t start! So we had a false start and were out of the race. The second time, McLovin was being temperamental and it started going in little circles instead of one giant circle.”
She laughed, “Let’s put it this way, the entire thing was more of a learning experience than anything else.”
“Engineering is near and dear to my heart,” said team coach Kathy Chesmel, a New Egypt High School science teacher who entered the teaching profession six years ago after working as a biomedical engineer. “This robotics contest taught them how to do technical problem solving and how to work under pressure.”
In the second of the two challenges the team members had to get the robot to push a red ball off one end of a track and a blue ball off the other end. If the ball exited the wrong end or off the side, no points were awarded. McLovin was 0-2.
“Only two teams actually completed the second task. Our robot did what we wanted it to do but we ran out of time,” Lindsay said.
However, Lindsay said she had a great time participating in the event and can’t wait to do it next year again – when, she says, the New Egypt team will surely win.
Lindsay plays softball and field hockey; Emily goes out for tennis and lacrosse. In fact, all of the girls are used to performing on the fields and spend much of their time practicing with their respective athletic teams. So, they are used to team play, but not team “academic” play. The robotics contest gave all of the students an opportunity to flex their most important muscle – their brain. To get ready for the robotics contest, the girls practiced during their lunch period.
The girls are looking forward to entering the robotics contest again next year. All New Egypt High School students are invited to join the team, Chesmel said, and she is thinking about having two teams in 2008 – one all-boys and the other all-girls.
“I always want to show girls that women can be successful in engineering activities,” the teacher said. “Besides, it’s always great to have the opportunity to interact with them as people, not just as students in the classroom.”