WEST WINDSOR-PLAINSBORO: No trophy, but robotics team are winners

By Allison Musante, Staff Writer
   WEST WINDSOR-PLAINSBORO — The FIRST Robotics Team has just returned from its second appearance at the FIRST World Championships in St. Louis.
   Though the team did not take home any awards, Michael Stevens, the team’s adult volunteer mentor, said the students are winners in their own right.
   ”I’m really proud of them,” he said. “The kids had a blast. For many of the kids, it was their first time at a world championship.”
   The Midnight Inventors, comprised of 47 students from North and South high schools, competed among 360 teams in two main challenges with their 120-pound robot.
   The students, who were among 11,000 of their peers from 29 countries, built the robot and configured its programming in just six weeks, as per the requirements.
   In this year’s theme of “Logo Motion,” each team was tasked with programming its robot to put large inflatable shapes on a 10-foot-high grid to form the logo of FIRST — For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.
   ”There was a 15-second period with no human control whatsoever,” said Mr. Stevens. “Teams had to program their bots to be autonomous. Working in alliances with other teams, the human players would throw the tubes into the playing field and the robots would either pick them up or prevent the other bots from picking them up.”
   In the second task, the larger robot carried inside of itself a miniature robot, which was deployed and programmed to climb a 10-foot pole in less than 10 seconds.
   Despite leaving St. Louis without a trophy, Mr. Stevens said the true highlight of the team’s season was winning the qualifying regional championship in Connecticut in April and walking away with two of the most respectable awards — the “Gracious Professionalism” award and the “Coopertition” award for working cooperatively among other teams.
   ”That was really great because seldom does a team that wins any championship win either of those awards too,” he said. “The kids were so helpful to other teams, like helping them reprogram their robots and work out glitches.”
   Kelsey Stevens, the team co-captain and a High School South junior, said simply qualifying for the prestigious event “was quite an honor.”
   Major awards were presented by senior officials from the Air Force, the Department of Energy, NASA and executives from Boeing and General Motors, among others. The event’s 25,000 attendees were also treated to a special concert by the Black Eyed Peas.
   ”We continue to be impressed by the level of dedication, collaboration and the high caliber of problem-solving skills among our FIRST students,” said FIRST founder Dean Kamen in a statement. “These young innovators will be handling the complex challenges of the 21st Century and bolstering our global economy with new research, inventions and jobs. Every year, we celebrate the achievements of the best young minds in science and innovation at the FIRST Championship.”
   Mr. Stevens also reflected on how the team has grown over the years and how the community has rallied behind them.
   ”One of the things I love is that when we started this back in 2006, we only had 10 kids, but now we have kids from both high schools — kids who are usually competing against each other are, in this case, working on the same team,” he said.
   Mr. Stevens added that he was grateful to Irv Cyzner, new owner of the Windsor Plaza in West Windsor, for donating a vacant storefront to the team while building its robot this season.
   ”It allowed the community to watch as built our robot, from the first screw and nut,” he said. “We had an open door policy and it was the first year we were able to show it off.”
   After winning the regional championship, the students faced the challenge of raising $5,000 to pay the registration fee and travel expenses. Mr. Stevens said the team accomplished its goal by seeking grants from the school district, Hess and the Princeton Corridor Rotary Club.
   For Mr. Stevens, the club is about much more than the love of science.
   ”When the kids are told the task in January, they begin putting together a business plan,” he said. “They learn what it’s like to have a deadline, to make sure they have adequate funding, and they put together PowerPoint presentations, brochures, handouts and knock on a lot of doors.”
   The students also demonstrated true sportsmanship, he said. The team helped qualifying teams from New York make their way to the competition by sharing their buses.
   ”I just love the way the kids approached this,” he said. “You know, we try to teach our kids life lessons, but sometimes the kids teach us.”