On March 17, three Clarkston High School students ? Rob Fittonneville, Chris Denis and Stefan Francesconi ? participated in the FIRST Robotics Team. The team competed at the Detroit Regionals and won the Rookie All-Star Award.
FIRST ? For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology ? is a robotics program mentored by students from Kettering University. The program allows high school students to put their building and teamwork skills to use.
The students from Kettering University decided to form this program based off schools in Oakland County and surrounding areas that do not have a robotics team.
Once the students formed a team, they were fast to work on their mission: to build a robot that must be able to play ‘Triple Play,? based off tic-tac-toe, where the robot must pick up and pile objects on top of the other.
The robot the FIRST team built weighed a total of 130 pounds. The robot’s mission was to pick up a nine- pound tetra (object) and place it on larger tetras for points. The students on the team did all of the work ? from building to programming the machine.
Now, the team is invited to participate in the national championship in Georgia on April 21-23. Due to budget concerns, parent volunteers and team members are working around the clock to raise money to raise money for the trip.
Volunteers have formed can drives, performed community service at the Woodward Dream Cruise and on April 16, will host a yooker tournament at the Knights of Columbus in Lake Orion.
For more information about the FIRST team and their fund-raisers, visit www.metalmuscle.org.