CRLS/RSTA/MIT Robotics Team Reach Final Four at Boston Regional Competition

A team from CRLS/RSTA /MIT and their robot made it to the semi-finals of the major New England robotics competition sponsored by the national FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Engineering) organization. Fifty high school robotics teams, from New Hampshire, Mass, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey competed in the Boston Regional FIRST Event at Boston University’s Agannis Arena the weekend of March 23-24th. Governor Deval Patrick addressed the thousands of supporters gathered to support their teams, in opening the Regional event.  "Team 97" from CRLS/RSTA/MIT made it to the final four and just missed being finalists. However on the basis of their strong performance last year and this year, "Team 97" will be competing in the FIRST national championship in Atlanta on April 12-14th.
          

CRLS team members Aaron King, Mathew Boyes-Watson, Beth Lerret, Karl Alexander, and former CRLS student Homa Ducasse (now at Everett HS) were joined by students from Chelsea High School. A group of MIT undergraduates led by Shane Colton served as mentors for the CRLS team, which also included students from Chelsea and Everett High Schools.

Each team builds a robot a few feet wide and high, capable of carrying out a set complex tasks. Three teams must work together in an Alliance, coordinating by remote control the actions of their three different  robots. They compete against an alliance of three other teams with their three robots. The ability to rapidly develop cooperative strategies and teamwork is a key feature of the event.

For this year’s match “rack n roll”, robots needed to pick up life preserver rings, and place them on shafts projecting from a central structure at varying heights. In addition the robots could throw out a ramp for their alliance robots to drive onto. If an allied robot successfully drove up on the ramp,  raising it off the ground 12 inches brought extra points. The CRLS Robot #97 had a particularly effective ramp and hydraulic raiser. It also played strong defense against other high scoring robots. According to MIT mentor Shane Colton, “I am very proud of this year's design - it is simple, reliable, and effective. And we have a great team to bring down to Atlanta.”
           
According to Driver and team captain Aaron King, “Even though our lifting arm broke down part-way through, by playing strong defense, and using our ramp and ramp raiser with our alliance partners, we contributed effectively to our alliances. We are looking forward to the national competition in Atlanta”
           
In addition to student mentors, MITs Edgerton Center for Education contributed machine shop space for construction of the robot and financial support.