Robot soccer player ready to face competition

FALLS VILLAGE — The Who’sCTEKS, the Housatonic Valley Regional High School robotics team, was working feverishly Monday, Feb. 22, to make final in-shop modifications to the robot they have been building since early January. The machine had to be shipped that night in order to take part in a regional match in March.

This year the team’s robot, which is designed and built by  students, has been engineered to kick soccer balls. The FIRST (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition sets different rules each year and for 2010, the game is three-on-three (robot) soccer.

The first regional competition for the team is at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., March 11 to 13. The team can only make modifications on site at the competition from this point on.

The Who’sCTEKS robot was unable to make the scrimmage Saturday, Feb. 20, at Suffield High School due being 7 pounds overweight, having no shield for the electronics and not having been programmed completely. Team mentors Dave VanDeusen and Cindy Fuller  attended the scrimmage to scout out the other teams’ robots.

“We’ve had our share of glitches this year,� said VanDeusen. “It’s a lot of work but it is also a lot of fun.�

He has been helping the high school students build robots since 2001, when his son, Derek VanDeusen, was on the team. The veteran said that this year’s team of nine students is young due to senior class team members graduating last spring.             

VanDeusen restores vintage muscle cars for a living and is currently working on a 1969 Mercury Cyclone 428 Cobra Jet and a 1969 Dodge Dart GTS. He says he wants to teach the students as much as he can but finds that they end up teaching him things.

“I get a good feeling from helping the high school students and steering them in the right direction in life,� VanDeusen said. This year the team has built a very defensively strong robot, he said.

The competition course is a 52-foot field, with a goal on either side, split into three sections that are divided by two ramp-and-tunnel obstacles that the robots must drive over or under. Landing a ball in the opposing team’s goal is good for one point.

In  the front of the Who’sCTEKS robot, a wooden board powered by a gas cylinder acts as a kicker that will push a soccer ball about 15 feet on flat ground. On each side, in between the treaded tires, guards prevent the ball from rolling under the vehicle, which would cause a penalty.

A grappling hook attached to the top of the robot, which looks like a scorpion’s stinger, can be activated to grab onto an overhanging pole.  Once the hook gets a good grip, two Fisher Price winches can lift the 120-pound robot off the ground. If the robot can suspend itself 18 inches above the ground in the final minute of the competition, it will earn an additional two points.

The four-wheeled soccer player is powered by four electric motors, runs on a 12-volt battery and has a two-gear transmission that allows for quicker acceleration or a higher top speed. Sophomore Nathaniel Purdy will be the driver for the team, controlling the robot wirelessly with two computer joysticks that look like helicopter controls.

Andy Brockway, an engineer at Becton Dickinson in North Canaan, has been a mentor for the program since Housy became involved in FIRST. He said for $6,000 the team gets a starter kit of parts and  entry to one regional competition. Additional registrations cost $4,000, but any team can attend any regional competition in the world. The Housy team will also attend the Northeast Utilities FIRST Connecticut Regional at the Convention Center in Hartford April 1 to 3.    

The FIRST Robotics Competition championship will be held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., April 15 to 17. Housy will not compete this year because it is too costly.