Known as Metal Moose, the Westtown School Robotics Team, sponsored by Mid-Atlantic Robotics 2012, won laurels at the Lenape FIRST Robotics District Competition, held on March 24.
Westtown School Robotics Team: The Metal Moose
The 2012 robotic challenge called ‘Rebound Rumble’ inspired the team to create a basketball-playing robot, Cobra-Moose. Westtown’s team entered the elimination rounds as an eighth seed, hustled with the seeds 1 and 2 to reach the championship round, and finally gave-up a best-of-three to the third-ranked team.
The ‘Innovation in Control Award’, which is a special judges’ recognition was presented to Westtown, a pre-K - 12 college prep school in West Chester, PA. This award honors application of control components or innovative control system that will promote unique machine function. Westtown Coach, Steve Compton said that although similar machine function control systems were achieved by other students, Westtown Robotics students outsmarted all the others by clearly explaining to the judges about the nature of the robot, its design and function.
The six-week annual FIRST Robotics Competition provides opportunity for school students to integrate with creativity and passion for meeting the challenges involved in science and technology and even in robotics. In Rebound Rumble, rival teams competed on a 27x54 ft field, with three robots each. In the 2-min competition, more sinking of basketballs, more the number of points.
Westtown Robotics is now eligible for progressing to Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, scheduled from April 12 to14, and also for the subsequent National Championship in Saint Louis Missouri from April 25 to 29, 2012.