East Tech sends robot to Epcot
Students vie in U.S. FIRST science meet

The national competition involves students and professional engineers who build devices from kits provided by U.S. FIRST. The teams' radio-controlled mechanical devices compete against each other in elimination matches.

Our brainstorming sessions began in East Tech's Media Center. We had to design, construct and test our Futuristic Operating Robot from Cleveland's East Tech. It had to lift a ball, place it in a basket and project the ball between a goal. If the ball or the robot touched part of the goal post, the point would not count.

Later, we worked at NASA Glenn Research Center three days each week. Our 15-person team, along with six NASA technicians and engineers, discussed defensive and scoring strategies. NASA Glenn is Each Tech's Partner in Education corporate sponsor.

The engineers built and demonstrated a model of our ideas and evaluated its advantages and disadvantages. We had only six weeks to pull everything together.

Tech FORCE ranked 31st out of 60 schools that competed. Our robot was excellent on the defense; it shot cones that blocked the opposing robots from scoring.

But our robot had trouble getting the ball into its launching mechanism.

Last year, our team came in eighth.

It was a great idea to have the tournament in Florida. We were there March 30 through April 3 and BP America paid our travel expenses. The trip gave us a chance to get away from Cleveland's cold weather and see Mickey and his friends. We were given a free pass to any of the Disney theme parks.