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Circuit Birds ready to fly
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Senior members of the Canfield High School Circuit Birds include, from left, Dylan Bowald, Nick Crescimanno, Mike Ramunno and Kyle Thompson. Missing from photo are Dan Brown and Sam Tedesco.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Members of the Canfield High School Circuit Birds had a breakfast to thank donors, supporters and team parents March 1. The team will travel to Cleveland and Pittsburgh to compete in FIRST Robotic Regional Competitions.
By ABBY SLANKER
The Canfield High School FIRST Robotics Team 4601, also known as Canfield Circuit Birds, had a breakfast at the high school to thank donors, supporters and team parents March 1.
The team, under the direction of CHS engineering graphics teacher Don Crum, academic advisor Michael Crescimanno and technical mentor Dominic Messuri, recently completed building its robot for upcoming FIRST regional competitions in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Each team is given a kit of parts made up of motors, batteries, a control system, a PC and a mix of automation components – and only limited instructions. The teams have six weeks to complete the robot.
Team members include seniors Dylan Bowald, Dan Brown, Nick Cresimanno, Mike Ramunno, Sam Tedesco Kyle Thompson; juniors Jacob Brothers, J.P. Clendenin, Jacob Duda, Jordan Evens-Kaplan, Austin Hall, Dominic Haniford, Jon Hutchison, Alicia Taylor, Paul Ugolini; sophomores Mac Carr, Peter Cresimanno, Donald Cutrer, Bill Gibson, Vince Haniford, Bobby Hudock, Anthony Messuri, Marie Messuri, Jacob Rizer and freshmen Anthony Clendenin.
This season’s sponsors include NASA, Delphi Corporation, Blackrock Corporation, IES, Canfield Rotary Club, Forbush Machine, City Machine Technologies and Mr. and Mrs. Dave Moore of Canfield.
“What makes this interesting, is that it is time sensitive. The kids not only build their robot in six weeks, but they also strategize, decide how to build the robot and choose what to focus on. At the end of the build time, the robot must be packed up and stored and cannot be worked on again and won’t be seen again until the first competition,” Sheila Ugolini said.
Last year was the first year for the Canfield Circuit Birds and they brought home several awards, including Highest Seeded Rookie and Rookie All Star Award at the Pittsburgh Regionals and The Rookie Inspiration Award at the World Championship in St. Louis, Mo.
“This team has been trailblazing and pioneering with great success for the past year and the kids have all been incredible,” Ugolini said.
This year, there is a bit of a twist in that the finals will be a team work activity instead of solo teams competing. The team had to build a robot which could pass and pick up an exercise ball and launch it to score points. In addition, the teams are tasked with scouting the other teams in the first rounds of the competition which they would like to work with.
The 2014 game, Aerial Assist, is played by two alliances of three teams each. Alliances compete by trying to score as many balls in goals as possible during a two-minute and 30-second match. Additional points are earned by robots working together to score goals, and by throwing and catching balls over a truss suspended just over five feet above the floor as they move the ball down the field.
Crum welcomed the donors, supporters and parents to the breakfast.
“This breakfast is a chance for everyone to meet the team and see what we have been doing and what this program is all about. We really appreciate your input and believing in our team. I am very proud of these students. They have done just about everything in building this robot. We couldn’t have done it without your support, especially the parents. We want to keep our momentum going and get more sponsors and more students involved. We are looking forward to the competitions.
Our robot is ready to roll and we are very confident in our abilities,” Crum said.
Crum then opened the floor to the Canfield Circuit Birds team members.
“I would like to thank the parents. They have been so supportive and we couldn’t do this without them. And to the sponsors, you make this happen - it’s pretty expensive and we thank you for your help on that end. What we are doing here is impacting students’ lives. We are building a foundation for kids to get involved in science and technology,” said senior team member Nick Crescimanno.
The team then had some fun demonstrating last year’s robot, which launched Frisbees, for everyone in attendance.
The Canfield Circuit Birds will travel to Cleveland March 20-22 and Pittsburgh March 27-29.