Columbia teen Ethan Myers put his skills in high-level computer programming to good use by helping to design a robot to complete tasks in a contest.
“The best part of building them is seeing if what you were working on actually works. It?s kind of frustrating when it doesn?t work,” he said. “Programming is a huge part of Botball and it won?t work too well without it.”
Ethan, 14, and his older brother Wesley, 16, recently took home a first-place prize in the 2007 International Botball Tournament held from July 10-13 in Honolulu, a growing robotics competition that seeks to spur students? interest in science, technology, engineering and math.
The two winners are students at Cedar Brook Academy, a private school in Clarksburg.
“This particular international contest combines the joy of mechanics and gaming and the love of competition and camaraderie,” said Cedar Brook Director Dave Smith.
It is run by the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, a nonprofit organization based in Oklahoma. The recent contest was the largest in nine years and is held as part of the National Conference on Educational Robotics. The teens were among 65 teams from 10 states, Washington and Poland to compete. They?ve been participating in the event since 2004.
“School systems and after-school clubs are finding a really good way to excite students about math and science is through hands-on activities,” said Jenny Grigsby, the public outreach coordinator with the KISS Institute. “And every year the challenges for the robots are getting harder and harder.”
This year, tasks centered on a Hawaiian theme. It required teams to have their robots, roughly 16-square-inch designs made up of Legos with various attachments and lifts, to transport small objects on a table with the goal of “saving an island from a volcano.”
“Every year the challenges get harder and harder,” Grigsby said. “Every time I see more elaborate codes and programs.”
Ethan said a big part of the tournament is strategy and that teams had to play both offense and defense. In addition to the overall prize, Wesley and Ethan won the Conference Leadership award and took first and second place in the combined Olympiad and Robot Trivia contests in the high school division.
The teens? mother, Helene, served as the team manager. After speaking with representatives of NASA who attended the tournament, she?s convinced that the development of these skills in children is vital.
“They?ve been saying that robotics experts are going to foreign countries,” she said. “So it?s definitely a field that needs people.”
Ethan is considering majoring in some form of engineering, whether it is computer or mechanical.
