‘The Flaming Falcons,? a team of five Oakview Middle School sixth-graders, took first place at the Robofest 2006 regional competition in Detroit on April 29.
‘They were the first and only team to complete the mission within the alloted time, and get a perfect score during one of the first two rounds,? said coach Laura Dickinson.
‘The Flaming Falcons? consisted of Josh Ahlborn, Scott Bommarito, Jon Guidon, Brad Lucas and Molly Stajniak.
They competed along with another Oakview team, ‘Team Awesome,? consisting of eighth-graders Nick Hutchinson, Billy Puuri and Will Sheridan.
Both teams were coached by Dickinson and Chris Smedley, and met after school for practice.
‘We’re a brand new club,? Smedley said. ‘It’s the first time these guys have done any type of robotics competition.?
Both teams competed in the junior division against seven other area teams.
‘Robofest is an international competition for students in grades five through 12,? noted Dickinson. ‘It challenges participants to design, construct and program robots to compete in missions with no human assistance.?
Each team used two robots that had to work together to complete a task. The ‘muscle-bot? had to remove an obstacle and tell the second robot, ‘the clean-up-bot,? to go and push plastic bottles off the end of a table.
Some factors were unknown until the teams reached the competition site, such as the distance the robots would have to travel to complete their tasks.
Each team had a couple of hours before the competition to adjust their robots accordingly.
Dickinson said ‘The Flaming Falcons? were awarded a huge trophy, now on display at the school.
‘Their win qualifies them to compete in the World Robofest Championship on May 13th at Lawrence Technical University,? she added.
More information about the competitions is available online at www.robofest.net.