May 28, 2003
Robot earns rave reviews
MTA students earn first place at competition
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
By knowing their project inside and out, students in the Manufacturing Technology Academy recently wowed judges enough at the Robotic Technology and Engineering Challenge to return home with gold medals. The event was held May 2-3 at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y. It drew entries from schools round the country.
Since February, eight MTA students from area high schools have pooled their talents into creating an automation work cell, a robot that will perform a task. Their robot was built and programmed to package and seal a tape measure in a bubble pack.
Built from the ground up with design changes up to the last minute, the work cell balked during testing just before the judging. The six students who accompanied it to the competition scrambled to solve problems, managing to smooth them out.
As the panel of professional engineers watched their presentation, it was obvious the creators knew their work inside and out. Their non-slick design did not detract from the sound engineering and understanding.
When the MTA's work cell faced off with a welding robot or laser guidance, substance beat form hands down and MTA took the gold.
"We knew how ours worked," said Jay Bearup from Central High School, the team's CAD designer. "There were a lot of better work cells but the students did not know how they worked."
Even working with minimal financial resources did not limit the finished product.
"We were on a limited budget, probably one of the most limited budgets there," said Tyler Soenen, a homeschooled student.
Students from the Manufacturing Technology Academy have racked up four consecutive first place finishes at this competition since 1999. This is the second consecutive first place finish in the animated work cell division. Jack Halligar, an instructor in the Manufacturing Technology Academy who accompanied the students to the competition, said judges can tell when students made something themselves and that is a crucial factor.
"Our students are very good at presenting themselves and their project because they know that they are talking about," Halligar said.
Tim Wheatley, another instructor in the program, noted the project has to have real world applications, as his students' packaging module did. It cannot be just bells and whistles that look good.
"Students have to come up with their own design that is doable, the more complex problem it solves, the better," Wheatley said.
In addition to Bearup and Soenen, students involved in the project were Moira Racich from Northport High School, Allison Fochtman from Kalkaska High School, William Carolan of West High School, Jake Tomlinson from Kingsley High School, Jared Kohler, a homeschool student and Ben Maurer from Glen Lake High School.
Working as a design and production team that emulated a business situation was one of the project's challenge. Team members divvied up the project at the outset, assigning various components such as CAD or programming to students with a specific interest or talent.
Students found that time management was their biggest hurdle overall, even more challenging than any technical issues. Though they had a timeline and goals spread over the months leading up to the competition, they did not follow their ambitious plan closely enough.
"Time management was the hardest thing for us," Soenen said. "We really didn't have any management until the last four days before the competition."
Overall, the experience has been invaluable, said Kohler, a first year student in the program who aspires to a film career.
"I learned a whole lot about the process of bringing something from concept to reality," he noted.