Jarvis, a mechanical athletic robot, was created by the Bridgewater-Raynham (BR) High School Robotics team known as TJ2 from a heap of bolts, gears, wires and other parts.
Bridgewater Raynham team
Jarvis cannot shoot hoops or swim but if an inner tube is to be picked up, change positions and then place it correctly on a hook, which is present 9 feet above the ground, then Jarvis could definitely do the job. According to Josh Steffen, one of the seniors, Jarvis was not a battlebot, which would just try to destroy things but it had specific tasks to perform, which was quite difficult to achieve. Josh was assigned the task of driving Jarvis with the help of a remote control.
This year the task assigned to the kids was to construct a robot that could pick up things and release them and test the heights and the lows the robot could reach. According to Len Sprague, the co-captain of the TJ2, robotics was highly fulfilling as the team members could be actively involved in the entire process. The wheels of the robot are covered with a number of little rollers instead of the normally used single piece of rubber, which gives Jarvis maximum maneuverability in all directions and even the power to pivot. The hands have the shape of tongs. To reach the high hooks, the robot has a little elevator that allows the hands to go up to the tallest peg. The previous year TJ2 after winning in Boston, went up to the quarterfinals in the Atlanta Championships.
Calef states that kids of all ages and having all kinds of talents were welcome as some could write essays for the award nominations while others could design the T-shirts and so on.