CENTERBURG — According to their motto, “There is no vaccine for the plague,” members of the “The Red Plague,” the Centerburg robotics club, are all set to infect the competition at the 2010 Buckeye Regional FIRST Robotics contest to be held March 25 to 27 at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University.
Their robot, identified by the numerals 3010 and dubbed “The Red Death,” will go up against 60 other robots from around Ohio and the United States.
Club volunteer Janine Hebenthal said this year’s competition, called “Breakaway,” involves the robot kicking soccer goals, driving through a tunnel, negotiating bumps and attaching itself to a tower and lifting itself with a pneumatic arm. The robot is controlled by a human driver using joysticks and a wireless control system with programming code the students wrote.
The young roboticists, with the assistance of adult mentors, had to use science, engineering, computing, programming and other technology skills to build “The Red Death” and make sure they stayed within the construction limits, such as weight, specified for the competition.
The Red Plague includes students Carri Garber, Shannon Hogan, Alex Jones, Danni LeChard, Michael LeChard, Gracie Liston, Eric Salley, Tyler Scowden, Jared Swartzentruber, Audrey Urban, Zack Liston, Becca Trumble, Kathryn Hebenthal, Elaina Gundy, Thomas Liwosz, Greg Wilkinson, Abby Altizer, David Hebenthal, Noah Orr, Bryce Trumble, Graham Altizer and Austin Garber.
The competition is free and open to the public.
For more information about the competition go to www.oai.org/firstbuckeye/index.htm. For more on the Red Plague, visit www.team3010.org.
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