By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Congressman Leonard Lance met Eleanor the robot on Tuesday.
The congressman spent almost 90 minutes Tuesday night seeing the operation of Hillsborough High School RoboRaiders club firsthand, and he came away impressed, he said.
As much as he came to see the technology firsthand, he wanted to honor the students for their year-long commitment to community service, he said.
Students unrolled for him a three-foot wide, six-foot long fine print list of the projects and activities in which the club has been involved since 2005. The club has been in existence longer than any other in New Jersey, members said.
For almost 90 minutes, Mr. Lance visited in the Route 206 warehouse housing the club’s activities. He saw the video that students must present to explain their work, how students use an advanced animation software to design and engineer their robot and, finally, see the robot (renamed from Bruce) in operation.
Not only does the project teach students about science in a fun way, their team organizational structure teaches them they have to work as a team, said Carmine Rizzo, an engineer from Johnson & Johnson who is their principal mentor.
Both Mr. Lance and Mayor Gloria McCauley were given the chance to have Eleanor perform its competition function by grabbing an inflated tube from their hands, carry it several yards to a designated bar and release it.
The highlight of the club’s year are competitions that started in Trenton and progressed to a regional event in Richmond, Va. While there, the club assembled 13 bicycles they brought in kit form and presented them to the Boys and Girls Club of Richmond, said Kathy Hill, the club president.
Among other things, the RoboRaiders visit Scout groups and assisted living homes, mentor younger students who build small robots from Lego materials and help start and support other robotics clubs, both in the area and as far away as Brazil. One student described their outreach as “from firehouses to foreign countries.” Mr. Lance reacted, “I guess I’m somewhere in between.”
This summer, some of the 70 members of the club will demonstrate their robot at the World Science Festival in New York City in June, as well as at the Somerset County 4-H Fair in August. They also join a Women in Science and Engineering workshop events for Girl Scouts in May.
All this takes money. One of the club’s main fund-raising events is a golf tournament scheduled for May 16. The club runs events from car washes to spaghetti dinners through the year.
Mr. Lance, a lawyer, said he had spent the morning listening to Supreme Court arguments in a case involving rights of states to sue power companions over emissions.
”As important as arguments are before the Supreme Court, what you do is equally important,” he told the students.

