Horry County robotics teams gear up for competition

When the FIRST Robotics Competition kicks off today in Charleston, Horry County Schools will be in the mix, six teams strong.

In addition to veteran teams from the Academy for the Arts, Science and Technology and the Academy for Technology and Academics, four new high-school-level teams – Carolina Forest, Conway, St. James and Socastee – will be present at The Citadel for the unveiling of this year’s game.

“I think it’s unbelievable how fast things are happening,” said Horry County school board member Karen McIlrath, District 2. “I couldn’t be happier. This is a tremendous opportunity for our local kids.”

McIlrath and Bucky Sellers, pre-engineering teacher at AAST, have been working since last fall to gain support from the community so that eventually every school can field a team for competition. Sellers has been involved with robotics for nine years, and his team has taken second place in two regional competitions.

About 250,000 students ages 6 to 18 worldwide participate each year in the FIRST Robotics Competition. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

Teams are given a game and a kit, and students have about six weeks to use their own ideas and their own designs to build a robot that can play the game. A team can have any number of students participate, with work being done after school and on strict deadlines. Aside from math and science, the competition encompasses areas such as graphics design, budgeting and community service - something for every student.

Today, this year’s game will be revealed to contestants at sites around the world via a NASA satellite telecast so that they all receive the information at the same time. Teams also will get their kits, which Sellers said will contain the basic components needed to make a robot that can move around. Teams can purchase additional parts but cannot spend more than $3,500.

“The competition has strenuous guidelines,” Sellers said. “To build something like this in just six weeks is a whole lot. Students will work over 100 hours a week, and a lot of teachers who get off [in the afternoon] will be working till after midnight seven days a week in order to meet the deadline.”

Sellers said students will not just design and build a robot. They have to be able to tear it down and put it together in one night, as well as test it, perfect it and ship it – by 5 p.m. Feb. 21, or they’re disqualified.

“This is a phenomenal amount of learning in six weeks,” Sellers said. “It’s much more than what people know.”

McIlrath said participation on even one FIRST Robotics team puts a student ahead of the game, giving them a highly desirable item to list on college applications. She said having teams in competition also is another way to illustrate how Horry County’s instruction has moved into the 21st century.

But participation doesn’t come cheap, and Sellers said teams need substantial financial support, especially to meet travel expenses.

The registration cost for a rookie team is $6,500, and Sellers said JCPenney stepped in to pick up that tab for the district’s four new participants.

“If it weren’t for them, these four teams wouldn’t exist in Horry County,” Sellers said.

Other groups also are lending support, McIlrath said, such as the Carolina Forest Civic Association, which is supplying an engineering mentor and financial support for the Carolina Forest team, and John Sanders and other Grand Strand Technology Council members, who are working with the Socastee team.

“It’s been just an incredible experience,” McIlrath said. “I think that’s just a fantastic start, and I believe it will just grow from there.”

For information about Horry County robotics teams and how to participate, contact McIlrath at 997-5250 or kmcilrath@sc.rr.com, or Sellers at AAST, 903-8460.

For more information about FIRST Robotics, visit http://www.usfirst.org/.