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Students’ robots show off hoops skills in preview of competition

By Emilie Bauer, Lafayette Journal and Courier

Just down the hall from the real basketball courts at Lafayette Jefferson High School, students from three area high schools transformed the auditorium stage into another basketball court.

But the players in the auditorium were robots.

These robots shot small, soft basketballs through a goal on the stage, much like a baseball-pitching machine, while their student designers stood on the other side of the stage with controls to drive their robots.

Students from Jeff, Harrison, and West Lafayette high schools spent the last six weeks building robots through For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). FIRST mentors from Purdue University have worked with the students since October to prepare for the competition season.

Students begin competing March 8 in Cleveland and will also attend the Boiler Regional at Purdue March 16-18.

As a precursor to the season, the three schools displayed their creations at an open house at Jeff Sunday afternoon. Parents and friends of students on the teams watched and cheered as the electronic players scored baskets.

Darsh Suresh, a sophomore at West Lafayette and a second-year member of his school’s team, enjoyed the chance to see all the robots in action for the first time.

“This is the first actual demo day,” said Suresh, who worked on the animation component of his team’s robot. “You get to see what needs to be worked on and you can see other teams.”

In addition to seeing the robots in action, audience members saw demonstrations of the computer animation component and the Web sites students designed to tell about their projects and teams.

Jeff Auter, a resident of West Lafayette and the father of a Purdue mentor, said he enjoys seeing students work on so many facets of the project. He compares it to a small business.

“You have the mechanical kid, the computer kid, the public relations kid,” said Auter.

Auter also described the idea of a robotics competition as “uncanny.” Roger Francis, associate principal at Jeff and sponsor of Jeff's team, sees the program as an unusual way to accomplish an educational goal.

“It's an idea to develop interest in science and technology at the high school level,” said Francis.

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