Kids compete in robot tournament at Ivy Tech

By Brady Gillihan
349-1420 | bgillihan@heraldt.com

November 3, 2007

Robots and kids mixed it up Saturday at the second annual VEX Robotics Tournament held at Ivy Tech Community College.

A month ago, each school that entered the contest received a box of robot parts with one rule: Each team is limited to the contents of the VEX Robotics starter kit. The disassembled robots were provided to the Indiana middle schools and high schools by the Bloomington Robotics Club, underwritten by Cook Inc.

“We knew what the goal was,” said Anthony Laughman, a student from Eastern High School and a member of the team Comet Tech. “And we built the robot around that.”

The goal was stacking racquetballs in tubes set on end. Most robots were designed with a scooping shovel, claw or a type of conveyor to pick up the balls. The robot from Greene County relied on a system spinning zip ties that sucked the balls onto a platform atop the robot. Once the platform was full of racquetballs, a tiny wheel with teeth was activated to spit balls into the tubes.

Laughman had just destroyed his competition, and was heading back to the “pits” to tune up his machine.

“Every team got the same box, the same kit. We were able to cut and bend and modify it however we wanted,” he said. “And so far, we did it right.”

Director of the event and chairman of Ivy Tech’s school of technology, Kirk Barnes, said each of the robots cost about $300.

“There was a total of about $25,000 invested in the kits. Any school was able to apply for a grant for the robots,” Barnes said. “The teams were required to come and compete if they got the grant.”

One team showed particularly strong ingenuity, using part of the cardboard box in which the kit was shipped. Barnes said they were disqualified because the 71 other teams didn’t use cardboard and technically, the rules say “in the box.”