Team is a well-oiled machine
Norwell High students win silver in world robotics competition
The Norwell High Robotics team - facing a field of 345 competitors, some from as far away as Brazil, Israel and Mexico - won the silver medal at this year's FIRST Robotics World Championships, held last weekend at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
The event brought together high school robotics teams from around the world to compete in what some call the "Super Bowl of science fairs." The competition - FIRST stands for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology - represents a culture of aspiring entrepreneurs who design, code, build, and market their own home-made robots, under the guidance of teachers and mentors with experience in those fields.
The 50 students on the Norwell team competed in Overdrive, a game played between two "alliances" of three robots each. The robots race counterclockwise around an oval track and try to knock large inflatable trackballs off a ladder-like rack. Robots are allowed to roam on their own for the first 15 seconds of each match, and can score by either knocking a trackball off the rack, crossing a lane marker, or crossing a finish line.
Team operators control the robots during the final two minutes, and scoring occurs when a robot tosses a trackball over the rack, or if their alliance's ball remains atop the rack at the end of the match.
The teams were split into four divisions, each named after a famous scientific figure - Archimedes, Marie Curie, Galileo, and Sir Isaac Newton. Norwell, competing against 86 other teams in the Curie Division, took the gold metal, qualifying for a spot in the championship Einstein Field.
Partnered with a team from Milford, Mich., and Mountain Home, Alaska, Norwell and its teammates blew through their semifinal matchup, sweeping their opponents in a best-of-three series. They were swept themselves in the championship finals, taking home the silver medal.
At the start of the season, teams were given a starter kit and had six weeks to build a functioning robot. Wayne Penn, a graduate student at Boston University, and Ross Kowalski, a teacher at Norwell High, helped mentor the crew. Students appealed to local technology sponsors for support, including Analog Devices of Norwood, and Piab Vacuum of Franklin, and SolidWorks of Concord.
Their finals appearance continued a tradition of success for Norwell Robotics. The team also won a silver medal at the New York City Regionals early this month and were semifinalists at the Florida Regional in March.
In past years, Norwell has won engineering awards, postseason events, and has mentored several other local robotics programs, including Marshfield High and South Shore Vocational Tech, said coach Mark Herman.
Robotics has "changed our whole program," Herman said. "When I started off, we had just a workshop, but we now have robotics, CAD, 3-D education. We now have leagues at the grade-school level, so we have kids coming from third grade on up. The whole department has really grown. It's been a real success for our school and our program."
Manny Veiga can be contacted at mveiga@globe.com.
