FIRST robotics Boston 2011 champions represent three N.E. states

By Rodney Brown

Teams from Bridgewater, Newport County, R.I., and Brookfield, Conn., allied to win the 2011 Boston regional FIRST Robotics Competition held this weekend. 

The Boston regional competition – called Logo Motion – took place at Boston University’s Agannis Arena, and 53 teams from as far afield as Ontario, Canada and Turkey, and as close as Cambridge and Lynn, sought to be one of the three teams on the winning alliance that would go on to the national championships in St. Louis.

After two days of head-to-head competitions, the alliance of Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School, the Aquidneck Island Robotics 4-H Club and Brookfield High School was named the overall winning alliance. 

All told, more than 1,000 high school students participated in the Boston regional competition, and New England teams came from as far away as Messalonskee High School in Oakland, Maine, and St. Johnsbury Academy in St. Johnsbury, Vt. Among the local teams was Team Ligerbots from the Newton school system, which made it to the quarter finals only to see its alliance get knocked out of contention in the final match of that round.

The matches consisted of three parts – first, the robot had to place a yellow innertube on a peg on the end wall of the competition rink completely autonomously using just sensors and programming. Then the “battle bot” portion of the match took place in which the robots, now under student control, were raced across the length of the rink to pick up colored innertubes of different shapes that were placed on pegs back on their own side to form the FIRST logo of a red triangle, white circle and blue square. Finally, each robot had to deploy a mini-robot that raced up a pole to trigger a light at the top.

One of the Ligerbots team members is Adam Scherlis, a senior at Newton and the “CTO” of the Ligerbots. As one of the few graduating seniors on the team, Scherlis said he had seen some real growth in the team this year and was very proud of its quick problem-solving skills.

“One thing I think we did really well at the competition is that we ran into a lot of bugs and we were very quick to figure how we were going to fix or work around them, and then were able to do it,” Scherlis said. “I think this year we were better organized, and it was really great to see it evolve from the beginning to the end of the season.”

One of the Ligerbots’ coaches is Phil Golando, administrative technology specialist at Newton North High School, and he agreed with Scherlis’ assessment of the teamwork and commitment from the students this year.

“The kids have really been great, they have stepped up a lot, and if the robot’s broken, they come in and fix it,” Golando said. “We have had a lot of issues and every time it’s the kids that were fixing it, not us, and that’s what we want.”

That level of commitment and effort was reflected in how well all of the teams performed in each challenge, not just the “battle-bot” portion, said Woodie Flowers, professor emeritus at MIT and one of the founders of the FIRST Robotics competition.

“It’s really fun to see a tight match followed by four mini-bots racing to the top of the pole and we have seen that a couple of times,” Flowers said. “That’s really a preview of what’s going to happen in St. Louis.”

Mass High Tech, April 11th 2011 via http://www.masshightech.com