R-Jeneration: Robotics program tests students’ skills in science, technology, engineering, math

The Thomas & Mack Center is packed with cheering fans who go to great lengths to support their team of choice.

Many wear T-shirts or hold signs showcasing their team's name.

One group of boys goes so far as to paint their chosen team's number on their chests with bright blue body paint.

The stands are alive with the rambunctious spirit of competition, but there are no athletes playing in the arena below.

In place of the usual sports competitors are robots.

The FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) provides a medium for technology-loving students the world over to put their skills to the test, and the Coronado High School Robotics Club takes advantage of this annual opportunity.

The club meets early in the school year to train members in safety procedures, learning about tools and computer-aided design, and building a smaller robot for practice.

Six weeks prior to the competition, the club gets to work on the robot that will be competing in the FRC. Their 'bot building takes place in a warehouse-style workshop in the back of the school that houses chop saws, arc welders and tool cabinets in place of desks. White boards reminiscent of a scientist's laboratory are wheeled out and covered with potential designs, and construction begins.

The room bustles with the club's 25 members as they tend to their duties. The more experienced builders hover around their robot as they cultivate it closer and closer to life.

Robotics Club president and senior Myles Putnam works on the wiring. He calls for tools like a surgeon performing an operation -- focused and authoritatively -- and they are handed to him assuredly.

With its plethora of wires, chains, pipes and gears, the robot looks like something out of a sci-fi movie, and it's hard to believe that it was handmade by a group of high school students.

"My favorite part of the robot is the arm that manipulates the shapes that we have to hang up," Putnam says. "It extends and retracts by pneumatics, which allows the arm to move to the positions we need faster than if we used motors to control the extension of the arm. The claw on the end of the arm operates by the same process and consequentially opens and closes very quickly. Besides, it's really cool to hear a 'whoosh' sound every time we use the pneumatics."

Sophomore Christian Lucas explains that during the building period, the club meets after school until about 6 p.m. and on weekends from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The hours may seem long, but the adviser of the club and computer teacher at the school, Sam Winn says, "This is their sport."

According to Winn, the Robotics Club and FRC promote education in science, technology, engineering and math.

"It gives kids a way of being competitive while using tools and technology," he says.

Winn says that some of the members of the club have never picked up a power tool in their lives prior to joining the team, but with the help of more experienced students, everyone has the opportunity to learn what it takes to build a robot.

"I mostly learned skills from senior team members," Putnam says. "They showed me how to do different aspects of the building process in a very hands-on way. I have also learned many skills from my classes in school such as math and AP computer science. In fact, while coding the robot this year, I was extremely surprised by the amount of trigonometry I used. Contrary to many of my fellow classmates' opinions, math actually does have real world applications."

The real world applications that Putnam speaks of are relevant to himself and many other members of the club who plan on using their robot-building skills in the future.

"In college, I'll be studying engineering, so almost all of the skills that I learned in robotics will be beneficial to me," Putnam says. "I'm not entirely sure what specific degree I will be going into, but I have done so many different things in robotics, from welding aluminum to programming the robot, that I should be set."

Another senior member, Kyle Hampton, credits the Robotics Club as one of the reasons why he got accepted into the Colorado School of Mines, a university dedicated to engineering.

"I've been interested in engineering for a while, so it's great to have a program at my school that allows me to get a feel for it on a smaller scale," he says.

A high school club could be considered small scale, but when it comes time for the competition, that attitude begins to change.

"Everyone is very pumped at this competition," says senior Lacy Knaffla, a first-year member of the club. "It feels like I'm at a sporting game. It's surprising how excited everybody is."

Winn describes the basics of one match as three high schools face off. Alliances are formed, strategies are devised and strengths are pitted against each other.

The competition this year is called Logomotion, and Putnam explains how it works.

"The robots have to pick up inflatable shapes and place them on a rack to score points," he says. "At the end of the round, we have the opportunity to deploy a miniature robot that will climb a 10-foot vertical pole to score additional points."

With upbeat music blasting through the arena's speakers and silly-looking team mascots parading about, the competition might look like it's all fun and games, but down in the pit it's serious.

Between matches, teams furiously scramble to fix any damages their robot may have suffered and quickly chat with their allies to form cohesive strategies.

The Coronado Rockin' Robots manage to repair their broken claw just in time for another round, and mere minutes before being summoned to the battleground, they decide to add a minirobot to their design. Tensions are high as they race to install this addition, and they finish with seconds to spare.

The Rockin' Robots make it all the way to the finals fighting alongside and against teams from all over the world before their defeat.

Adviser Winn deems the day a success.

"This year's competition was very challenging and exciting," he says. "Our robot did very well. A lot of robots didn't even make it on the field for some matches and we made it every time."