Twelve teams from high schools and middle schools in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa gathered at Appleton's Xavier High School on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009, joined by spectators and friends for an intense day-long robotics competition. The teams of students had spent hundreds of hours in designing and building their own robots using combinations of metal parts, plastic Lego components, fabrics, wires, wheels, gears, motors, control systems, sensors, and other tools. The robots had to be able to perform specific tasks such as gathering hocky pucks and depositing them into a central receptacle, with two-team alliances competing against opponent teams. The competitions occurred in brief rounds (30 seconds for the programmed autonomous phase and two minutes for the remote controlled phase) inside a playing field that had some hazards and tasks to complete. In the heat of battle, some robots would fall, get stuck, or face other problems. It was an amazing day watching these teams battle each other.

Congratulations to the Burnin' Rubber team of Lincoln Middle School in Mount Prospect, Illinois, which took overall honors. I was pleased, however, to present the Think Award to the Steelers of the Conserve School in Land of Lakes, Wisconsin, for the best notebooks (laboratory notebook style) describing their journey of several months. They did great in the team-versus-team competitions also, and came so close to victory. Congrats also to Team 217 (the "Kinetic Ploar Bears") from Hortonville Schools in Greenville, Wisconsin, who won the prestigious PTC Design Award.

Many thanks to Marc Couture who organized the event and the many others who made it possible. Thanks also to Xavier High for graciously hosting, and to the sponsors (including Innovationedge, where I work). Here are a few of my photos from the day:













And a summary from Animoto: