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The traveling team of engineering and technology lovers and their 10 adult chaperones switched from air travel to bus this year as an economic measure. The group left the Shen campus April 14 for the five day contest returning April 19 after an all night drive.
Sounding like any seasoned athletic team member Andrew Janucik critiqued the tournament a few days after returning. "We did well," he said. "Not as well as we thought we'd do, but we played well. Some of the robots like those from Michigan and Illinois could really score."
This was the 17th year in a row a team from Shen has participated in the FIRST competition. The tournament was started in 1992 by Dean Kamen as a way to inspire students interested in the fields of engineering and technology. Kamen is the inventor of the Segway, the two-wheeled utilitarian people mover.
As one of the original 28 teams to enter that first competition Shen is guaranteed a place in the annual international tournament. The club's constantly rotating membership however feels better when they play their way in with proven displays of engineering ability in regional contests.
This year 380 teams were invited to compete. Like other years this one included international teams as well as the cream of America's high school robotics clubs.
Participating from outside the U.S. borders were teams from Germany, Brazil, Israel, and the Phillippines.
Instead of the usual one-on-one round robin style tournament FIRST uses a unique format where teams partner with other teams in competitive matches featuring six-on-six contests.
"At one point I looked out and we were the only American team in the match," said the club's lead mentor Rose Barra. "We were partnered with teams from Brazil and Israel."
Barra teaches science in Acadia Middle School and has been involved with the robotics club for four years. The team's other mentor is Shen teacher Paul Kane.
"There were four divisions in Atlanta and ours had 87 teams," Barra said. "We wound up going 5-2 after a 5-0 start. We were hoping to make the elimination round on Saturday with our record but we didn't. That was our big disappointment this trip."
Each year the contest is unique. Teams are given a detailed plan of what their robots must do to score points. The young engineers and technicians take the rules of the game and build their robots to score well and play some defense. The Shen team is fortunate to have RPI as a sponsor. With the university's support the Shen team was able to build a practice field in the RPI technology park. The Rocketeers' 2009 robot was named RALPH. In true athletic-styled humor the acronym stands for Rocketeers Awesome Launcher Puker Hurler.
In keeping with the cost conscience era and to help lessen the load of the necessary fund raising efforts, the cost to build RALPH was kept at last year's level, $90,000.
The 2009 FIRST tournament contest rules required the robots to put balls of differing point values into a trailer that was pulled behind another team's robot. As in the recent past the tournament took place in Atlanta's Georgia Dome with four matches of six teams each competing simultaneously.
"We didn't compete in the elimination round but they got to go to the party after the finals with all the other teams and enjoy the food, the games, and the fireworks before we started home," Barra said. "With all the teams that come in we pretty much take over the city each year."
RALPH may have gone unrecognized in Atlanta because he didn't make it to the elimination round but at this year's Manchester, NH regional qualifying match the Shen robot won the Motorola Quality and Design award.
Barra was asked if the faltering economy was evident in any ways beyond the long bus ride. "There was much more of an awareness of the tournament's long time sponsors like GM," she said. "There was a big sense of keeping them on. They were acknowledged a lot. This was the year to take pride in the sponsors."
Janucik is a Shen senior and though he has only been with the club for two years he understands fully how much it means to those who enjoy technology. He plans to return next year as a mentor from RPI, where he will be a freshman. "It's a lot of fun," he said, "and Atlanta is always a great experience."
