The Gus Robotics team joined by Derek Johnson, a junior student of Wallingford’s Lyman Hall School and Matt Clark won the 2011 Chairman’s Award at the First Robotic competition beating 30 other teams.
A GUS team member works during a GUS team meeting at Maloney High School in Meriden.
The competition was held at Massachusetts’ Worcester Polytechnic Institute on March 12. The team is currently trying to collect funds for travelling to St. Louis to compete in the national championships, which are to be held in the last weekend of April.
The Gus team, which was initially formed in 1999, had only students from Meriden with Bryan Ragaini as mentor. Presently the team consists of students from high schools in both Wallingford and Meriden. According to Ragaini, the team does not just build robots but builds their own futures through this team work. They help in writing business plans, write awards and work on computers along with building robots.. They have to build a robot to compete in a game, which is chosen by the competition organizers. Logomotion is this year’s game, where the robot would construct shapes. The team members work hard along with the mentors to fine tune the robot and eliminate the glitches found in their winning entry, the Gus 13. The entire team works some on computer programs, some help in sorting screws and part while others have made necklaces to give away during the competitions.
One parent noted that the team did not consist of just gears and geeks but included baseball, tennis and football players along with drama club members and also high honor roll students, all working in unison to achieve success.