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Fitch robotics team competes
By Elise Franco
Austintown
For many years, a successful robotics team at Austintown Fitch High School was just a pipe dream for Ric Zimmermann.
But early this morning the team, named Falco Tech, packed up its gear and its robot, Talon, and made the drive to Columbus for a competition.
The Austintown Fitch robotics team, in its first year together, is competing today in a FIRST Robotics Competition, said Zimmermann, team leader. FIRST means For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.
It will be only the third time Falco Tech has competed, but Zimmermann said he’s impressed by how quickly the eight team members honed in their skills and how well the robot has performed in such a short period.
“They design the robot and build it even though a lot of these kids have never run any type of equipment before,” he said. “They do all the troubleshooting and learn to make it better as they go.”
Zimmermann said the team placed 18th of 31 teams during its first competition in Pittsburgh and 18th of 64 teams at another in Cleveland, both earlier this year.
“It’s really amazing. We had students that kind of lagged off to the side at first,” he said. “You had to basically steer them, but once they got the hang of it, they took the ball and ran with it. It’s very addictive.”
Zimmermann said each team pays $6,500 for the first competition of the year and $4,000 for each additional. The extra money the first time around pays for the parts that will help each team build the robots.
“It gives you a basic rolling-frame robot, and they can use that or redesign it,” he said. “A lot of teams will use the basic frame, but we did a little more with ours.”
Zimmermann said he was able to raise $17,500 in grant money to fund the team in its first year.
Falco Tech’s robot, Talon, is equipped with an extending arm that’s hooked on the end, air
valves that suck air in and push it out, as well as six wheels. All of these tools are used to help the team succeed in its competition task: Use your robot and soccer balls to score as many goals as possible during a timed period.
Laura O’Connor, 18, said she jumped at the chance to join the robotics team.
“There’s really a lot of scholarship opportunities,” she said. “You have so many experiences that you wouldn’t have otherwise.”
O’Connor said though building the robot was fun, at times the task seemed daunting.
“It was more work than we all thought,” she said.
Teammate Rosalie Sepesy, 17, said the rewards were well worth the hard work.
“We’ve gotten general experience with engineering,” she said. “It gives us an idea of if it’s something we’d be interested in going into.”
O’Connor said the group formed a strong bond right away, which helped it work well together.
“We did a lot of planning and designing together,” she said. “That was so important.”
Zimmermann said he and assistant team leader Mike Mellott are doing everything they can to pique students’ interest in science and engineering.
“It’s up and coming, and we’re in very short supply in the U.S.,” Zimmermann said.
He thinks this year’s team has succeeded in drawing in more students.
“They had an impromptu open house at Fitch that they advertised to students, and six more students came down and signed up for next year,” he said. “We expect even more.”
For information about FIRST Robotics Competition, visit www.usfirst.org.